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MEMOIR 



WILLIAM H. Y. HACKETT, 



FRANK W. HACKETT 



WITH SELECTIONS FROM HIS WRITINGS. 



Pri'tiatElg Printcti. 



PORTS M O U T H 
1879. 




No 



. JIL 



FRANKLIN PRESS: 

RAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY, 

BOSTON. 



"It is what a man has been, not where he has been, that 
really interests and instructs us. It is the history of his mind 
and heart, and not a chronicle of the accidents that befell him, 
that produces good." 

So ^\TOte the subject of these memorial pages in introducing 
to his readers the sketch of his venerable friend Halliburton. 
Such is the conviction that has guided the present writer in his 
attempt to fulfil the self-imposed and filial task of preparing this 
record of a long, happy, and eminently useful life. 

Portsmouth, September, 1S79. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

I. Memoir i 

II. Obituary Sketches : — 

1. By Rev. James De Normandie .... 87 

2. By John Scribner Jenness, Esq. ... 90 

III, Proceedings of the Bar and Court : — 

1. Remarks of Hon. William W. Stickney. . 99 

2. Remarks of Hon. Albert R. Hatch . . 100 

3. Remarks of J. S. H. Frink, Esq. . . . 102 

4. Remarks of Hon. Isaac W. Smith . . -103 

IV. Selections from Mr. Hackett's Writings : — 

1. The Life and Character of John Jay . . 109 

2. The Necessity of Individuality in Character 126 

3. Success in Life 130 

4. Remarks on presenting Resolutions of the 

Rockingham Bar upon the Death of John 

Porter, Esq 147 

Index of Names 153 



I. 

MEMOIR. 



MEMOIR. 



William Henry Young Hackett departed this 
life at his residence in Portsmouth, New Hamp- 
shire, a httle past four o'clock in the afternoon 
of Friday, August ninth, in the year eighteen 
hundred and seventy-eight. Born in Gihnanton, 
New Hampshire, September twenty-fourth, in the 
year eio-hteen hundred, he lacked but a month 
and a half of having completed his seventy-eighth 
year. 

Mr. Hackett was the eldest of six sons and 
three daughters, children of Allen and Mary 
(Young) Hackett of Gilmanton. The others 
were Jeremiah Mason ; Nancy Young ; Hiram 
Stephen ; Mary Jane (wife of Andrew Dyer 
Leighton), living at Belmont, formerly a part 
of Gilmanton ; Eliza Ann (wife of Jeremiah Carl- 
ton Hackett), living at Boston, Massachusetts; 
George Washington ; Charles Alfred, living at 
the homestead at Belmont ; and Luther Allen. 

There is little reason to doubt that Mr. Hackett 
came of an English ancestry. Traces of the 



2 Memoir. 

name are found in Massachusetts and New 
Hampshire soon after their first settlement ; but 
who were the individuals that bore it, or from 
what precise locality they had come, must for the 
present be left to conjecture ; the most plausible 
theory being, that they emigrated directly from 
the mother country somewhere about the year 
1630. Lower thinks the Anglo-Saxon " Racket" 
(for the / final was not doubled till the present 
century) a corruption of " Harcourt ; " while 
another writer ingeniously derives it from some 
signal act of valor in the field with sword or 
battle-axe. However this may be, we know that 
the non-prefixed surname " Hacket " appears on 
the Hundred Rolls of Battle Abbey (1273), and 
is not unfrequently to be met with in English 
annals of a still earlier period. An ancient branch 
of the family in Scotland, that in later times have 
achieved military distinction, spell their name 
" Halket," though retaining the pronunciation of 
" Hacket." Keating, in his " History of Ireland," 
enumerates certain families " of the best English 
stock," who crossed into Ireland in the reign of 
Henry II. (1175), and among them the Hackets. 
Here they acquired large estates ; and many of 
their descendants are to-day prominent citizens of 
Dublin and its neighborhood. Their presence 
accounts for the name of Hackettstown, in the 
county of Carlow, not far from the Irish capital. 

It is hardly to be claimed that any single indi- 
vidual has rendered the name illustrious, unless 



Memoir. 3 

indeed we are bound to except John Hacket, 
Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry from 1661 to 
1670. This eminent prelate, a descendant of the 
Scotch Halkets, was born at London in 1592, and 
educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. During 
his ministrations as bishop he expended no less 
than twenty thousand pounds of his own private 
fortune in rebuilding Lichfield Cathedral, where 
his remains lie under an imposing monument. 
He was noted for the gentleness and purity of his 
character ; and his fervid piety, eloquence, and 
zeal have kept his memory green in the church. 
Passages from his sermons, still preserved, attest 
his power in the pulpit ; while his " Life of Arch- 
bishop Williams " entitles him to honorable rank 
as a biographer. 

Mr. Froude, in his second volume of "The His- 
tory of England," quotes the official letters of Sir 
John Hacket, the English ambassador at Brussels 
(1533) in the reign of Henry VIIL It may 
likewise be mentioned, in passing, that Sir Cuth- 
bert Hacket was Lord Mayor of London in 1626, 
and that Sir Thomas Hacket was Lord Mayor of 
Dublin in 1687. Thomas Hacket, an English 
scholar, had translated " The Amadis of Gaul " 
previous to 1588; and a third Thomas Hacket 
(an Englishman) was Bishop of Down from 1672 
to 1693. David Hacket filled the see of Ossory 
(the oldest of the Irish bishoprics) from 1460 to 
1478 ; and a person of the same name is said to 
have been the architect of the Monastery of Ba- 



4 Memoir. 

talha in Portugal, some time in the fifteenth cen- 
tury. Well-nigh five hundred years ago (1384) 
Peter Hacket was consecrated Bishop of Cashel." 
Like many sons of New England who have 
lived useful and successful lives, the subject of 
this memoir came of a race of plain, substantial 
farmers. His earliest ancestor now known bore 
the family name of William, and for the latter 
part of his life made his home at Salisbury in 
Massachusetts, near the mouth of the Merri- 
mack. He was by occupation a mariner, and 
appears to have been a man of superior talent 
and energy. Upon the first leaf of the Salisbury 
town records is an entrv that registers the mar- 
riage of William Hacket to Sarah Barnard, Jan- 
uary 31, 1667. There is good reason for believ- 
ing this ancestor to have been identical with the 
" Will Hacket," who, as the Dover records tell 
us, had a grant in 1656 " touching Bellemie's 
bank freshet," and who was taxed at Cocheco 
the year following. He soon after sold his land 
to Thomas Hanson, and removed to Exeter, dis- 
tant from Salisbury but ten or twelve miles in- 



' The allusion to Marian Hacket of Wincot (Warwickshire), in the 
Induction to the Taming of the Shrew (Sc. IV.), shows that this surname 
was not unfamiliar in the neighborhood of Stratford-upon-Avon in Shak- 
speare's day. Sir Charles Hacket, an officer of the estates, who aided in 
the capture of Montrose (1650), lives under a ban in the popular ballad 
of the Gallant Grahams : — 

" Then woe to Strachan and Hacket baith, 
And Leslie ill death may thou dee ; 
For ye have betrayed the gallant Grahams, 
Who aye were true to Majestic." 



Memoir. 5 

land, "Will Hacket " took the oath of allegiance 
at Exeter in 1667, and was rated there in the 
province lists in 1681 and 1682. Savage, who 
thinks the two may have been the same person, 
suggests that perhaps he came originally from 
Lynn, where was Jabez in 1644, who removed 
thence to Taunton. 

John, the second child of William and Sarah, 
was born at Amesbury in 1669 ; all the other 
children at Salisbury. Of the numerous descend- 
ants of this couple living at Salisbury during the 
succeeding century and a half, a large proportion 
were farmers ; some followed the sea ; while a few 
were shipwrights, who gained much repute as 
master-builders. Year after year hardly a town 
meeting assembled that the voters did not call a 
William, a John, or a Richard Hackett to a post 
of official duty; and yet such are the mutations of 
time, that for the last half-century not a solitary 
individual of the name appears to have been left 
there to preserve the memory of his forefathers. 

It was the fortune of William Hackett, while 
in command of the sloop " Indeavor," hailing 
from the port of " Salsbury, in the county of 
Norfolk, in New England," to act a conspicuous 
part in certain proceedings which have come 
down to us as the first recorded jury trial in the 
province of New Jersey. This was in May, 167 1. 
Governor Carteret, it seems, had insisted that pay- 
ment of duties at the custom-house in New York, 
by vessels entering Sandy Hook, gave no right to 



6 Memoir. 

trade in New Jersey, but that license therefor 
should be taken out at the custom-house in 
Elizabeth Town. Captain Hackett, not entertain- 
ing that view of provincial sovereignty, undertook 
to trade on the Jersey side, after having paid the 
duties at New York only, whereupon the gov- 
ernor seized his vessel, and summoned a jury to 
try the offender upon a charge of illegal trading. 
The captain conducted his own defence, and is 
said to have presented with much ability fourteen 
grounds for acquittal, — enough, one would con- 
ceive, to bewilder an ordinary jury. That body, 
" after a 2d and 3d going forth," came in and de- 
clared that "the matter Committed to them is of 
too great waight for them," and were discharged. 
A second jury, however, suited the governor's 
purpose better ; for they promptly found Captain 
Hackett guilty, and his sloop was declared for- 
feited.' 

What effect this untoward event had upon the 
further pursuit of his calling does not appear : 
perhaps he retired to his farm at Salisbury, for 
the records show that he was the possessor of a 
good estate there. He died at Salisbury, March 

6, 1713- 

The children of William and Sarah Hackett 
were Sarah, John, Ephraim, William, Judah, Eben- 
ezer, and Katharine. From Judah was descended 
the late Dr. Horatio Balch Hackett, the distin- 
guished biblical scholar and writer. Ebenezer, 

' III. E. J. Records, 75; Hatfield's History of Elizabeth, 135. 



Memoir. 7 

born October 17, 1687, married Hannah, daughter 
of Jarves Ring, and had tweh^e children, the old- 
est son, Ephraim, having been born at Salisbury, 
October 3, 171 1. 

At the age of twenty- three Ephraim Hackett 
married Dorothy, daughter of Stillson Allen of 
Salisbury, and great-grand-daughter of Mr. Wil- 
liam Allen, a leading man at the settlement of the 
town in 1638. It must have been early in 1749 
that Ephraim Hackett, with his wife and a family 
of young children, made his w^ay up the valley of 
the Merrimack to Canterbury, New Hampshire. 
This frontier town was then little better than a 
wilderness ; for, though a settlement had been 
begun under the charter two and twenty years 
before, constant exposure to attack from Indians 
had greatly retarded its growth. The new-comer 
was a man of resources, and doubtless proved a 
welcome addition to the little band of pioneers. 
He secured an extensive tract of land not far 
from the spot selected for the new meeting- 
house, and at once showed himself fitted to lead 
in town and parish matters. His townsmen fre- 
quently called on him to act as moderator or 
selectman ; and the still more honorable distinc- 
tion was conferred upon him of being chosen 
one of a committee to convey to the new min- 
ister an invitation, adopted by unanimous vote in 
town-meeting, to come and share their privations. 
The homestead where Ephraim Hackett lived to 
a hearty old age formed a part of what is now 



8 Memoir. 

the fine farm of Captain David Morrill. In a 
beautiful field that slopes gently to the south and 
west, one can trace upon the sward the faint out- 
lines of the well, long ago filled up ; and hard by 
is the site where, within the memory of one or 
two yet living, the ruins of the cellar remained 
visible till early in the present century. A spring 
of clear water still offers its refreshing draught ; 
while a superb view of the surrounding country 
excites sympathy with the taste of him who chose 
this spot whereon to found a home. 

The children of Ephraim and Dorothy were 
Ezra', Hezekiah, Ezra', Jeremiah, Betty, Mary, 
Ephraim', Miriam, Ephraim", Dorothy, Allen, 
Charles, and Ebenezer, the last six of whom were 
born in Canterbury. Jeremiah was a farmer like 
his neighbors, and lived next the homestead, upon 
what was afterwards known as the Patrick Farm, 
from the fact that the land passed into the hands 
of the Rev. Mr. Patrick. Tradition recounts that 
Jeremiah Hackett first saw the maiden who be- 
came his wife (Polly Robinson) at the meeting- 
house on a Sunday. Attracted by her comeliness, 
he followed her home, ascertained her name, and 
in due time pressed his suit. She brought him 
five sons and as many daughters ; viz,, Sarah, 
Bradbury, Jeremiah, Allen, Daniel, Polly, Asa, 
Betsey, Susan, and Patty, all of whom were born 
in Canterbury. He died in the prime of life, in 
the summer of 1797. 

Allen Hackett, the father of the subject of this 



Memoir. 9 

memoir, was born upon the Patrick Farm, in 
Canterbury, July 15, 1777. He was a handsome 
youth, full of animal spirits, and excelled, it is 
said, in dancing. When grown to man's estate, 
he was sedate and disfnified in manner, and re- 
served in the presence of strangers. He was of 
striking personal appearance ; for his frame was 
powerful and well-proportioned, and he stood 
over six feet in height. His complexion was 
florid, features large and regular, and such as be- 
tokened intellectual strength. Good natural parts 
he had improved by an academical education ; 
and his conversation stamped him as the supe- 
rior of many around him. W ith no opportimity 
to profit by travel, he was indebted to his love 
of reading for a store of varied and useful in- 
formation. Political literature he keenly relished ; 
and the weekly newspaper from Concord had 
not a reader more assiduous. Constant in his 
attendance at primary meetings and conventions, 
he did much to shape their action ; and his repu- 
tation for political sagacity made him the oracle of 
the community where he lived : indeed, Mr. Allen 
Hackett wielded no slight influence in the coun- 
sels of his party throughout all that quarter of 
the State. An ardent Federalist and Whig, his 
friends year after year found themselves in a 
minority, which might perhaps have extinguished 
hope anywhere else than in New Hampshire ; but 
he was not an aspirant for office, though he liked 
the stir of a campaign, and the glow of political 



lo Memoir. 

discussion. The life, however, of this sturdy New 
England farmer was uneventful. Honorable in 
his dealings, and loyal in his friendships, he was 
justly esteemed alike for his private worth and 
public spirit by all who knew him ; and when he 
died, in 1848, his children mourned the loss of a 
prudent and affectionate parent. 

Gilmanton Academy, now one of the oldest 
institutions of learning in New Hampshire, was 
established in 1797. At its opening term Allen 
Hackett entered as a student from the adjoining 
town of Canterbury ; and Mary Young of Gil- 
manton, then a girl of seventeen, was seeking 
an education at the same source. The good peo- 
ple of that day conceived it a high compliment 
when they said of a young lady that she was as 
handsome as Polly Young. To charms of person 
happily were added a quick intelligence, a cheer- 
ful disposition, and a kindness of heart that knew 
no bounds ; and it was rare good fortune in Allen 
Hackett to win so estimable a woman for a wife. 
Endowed with a memory retentive and accurate, 
Mrs. Hackett readily assimilated what she had 
gathered from books, and, in spite of the family 
cares that early marriage invited, she managed to 
keep herself well informed of what was going 
on in the religious, literary, and political world. 
While improving every opportunity to cultivate 
her mind, she neglected no duty of wife or mother, 
and bestowed upon her children the wealth of a 
warm and affectionate nature ; nor, in minister- 



Memoir. 1 1 

ing to their health and comfort, did she fail to 
inculcate the precepts of religion. Between Mr. 
Hackett and his mother a relation of peculiar 
tenderness existed that appreciably moulded his 
character, and to a ereat deoree insured his sue- 
cess in after-life. In January, 1854, this woman of 
blessed memory passed away at the age of seventy- 
three. 

Mr. Hackett's maternal grandfather, Joseph 
Young, was one of the earliest settlers of Gilman- 
ton, and for many years a leading and influential 
citizen of that town. He married Anna Folsom 
at his native town of Exeter in 1771, and lived 
there till 1779, when, in company with- the Fol- 
soms and Gilmans, he made the journey on horse- 
back to the hills of Gilmanton. Here he engaged 
actively in business enterprises, and accumulated 
what the country people of that day accounted a 
handsome fortune. Mr. Young represented the 
town for nine terms in the General Court, served 
eleven years as a selectman, and was a ruling 
elder in the church. He had two daughters, — 
Polly, the mother of Mr. Hackett ; and Nancy, 
who died soon after her marriage. His only son, 
William Henry, is said to have been a young man 
of amiable disposition and of more than ordinary 
promise. After having completed his education 
at Phillips Academy, Exeter, he established him- 
self as a trader at Gilmanton, where, after four 
years of successful business, he suddenly died in 
1797. It was in memory of her only brother that 



1 2 Memoir. 

Mrs. Hackett gave to her son the name of William 
Henry Young. 

Allen Hackett, having learned his trade at Con- 
cord, started in life as a tanner, occupying for the 
purpose a lot adjoining the academy grounds at 
"The Corner," for so the Gilmanton people desig- 
nated their chief village. At the edge of the tan- 
yard, just back from the road, stood his dwelling- 
house, — a plain structure of one story, still to be 
seen as the traveller from Gilmanton Iron Works 
descends the hill into the village. Here William 
Henry Young Hackett was born, September 24, 
1800. 

When the child was about a year old, his father 
determined to sell the tannery, and apply himself 
to farming. Accordingly he removed his family 
to the W. R. Gale Farm (so called), distant five 
miles from the Corner, and a mile and a half from 
what is now Factory Village. If not robust, the 
boy was healthy, and throve in the pure, bracing 
air of the Gilmanton hills. The eight years that 
followed saw four other children added to the 
household ; and, as family cares multiplied, the 
mother, when compelled for short seasons to ab- 
sent herself from her little ones, did not hesitate 
to intrust them to the vigfilant care of her eldest. 
A trivial incident is preserved of William Henry's 
childhood, associated with the memorable eclipse 
of the sun in June, 1806. This phenomenon 
lasted from ten in the morning- till half an hour 
after noon, the total obscuration continuing up- 



Memoir. 1 3 

wards of four minutes. Fowls went to roost, 
stars of the first mao^nitude could be discerned, 
and an appearance of twilight spread over the 
horizon. For a while the boy of five years viewed 
in silence the sublime scene ; then, as the dark- 
ness began slowly to recede, he exclaimed, " It's 
the shortest night that ever I saw, mother." 

In 1809 Allen Hackett bettered his condition 
by purchasing a piece of land next the Governor 
Badger Estate, on the road from the Corner to 
Factory Village, — a lot, it may be remarked, 
upon which the first child was born in Gilmanton. 
Mrs. Hackett having been presented by her father 
with a house and a valuable tract on the opposite 
side of the road, the family was removed thither. 
Subsequently Mr. Allen Hackett built upon his 
lot a more commodious dwelling-house, which 
with its improvements is to-day occupied by his 
only surviving son, Charles A. Hackett, Esq. 
The part of the town, it should be explained, 
embracing the site of this farm, was set ofi" as 
Upper Gilmanton in 1859, — a name that ten 
years later was changed to Belmont. 

Here the youth worked upon the farm, rode the 
horse to mill ; in short, performed all the ordinary 
duties that fall to the lot of the eldest son of a 
farmer's family. In the winter months he at- 
tended the little district school, not far off. 
Though industrious and obedient, he cannot be 
said to have taken kindly to any species of farm 
labor : indeed, his father is credited with saying. 



14 Memoir. 

" William Henry will clear up brush, and burn the 
heaps, — the only mark of a good farmer I ever 
knew him to have." Playmates were few, and he 
appears to have inclined but little to out-of-door 
sports. From childhood he had evinced an in- 
tense love of reading ;. and it was in books that he 
found his chief pleasure, often devouring them by 
candle-light after a day's work in the field. His 
mother guided his taste as best she might, and 
encouraged the ambition he had early manifested 
to devote himself, upon growing up, to some pur- 
suit more intellectual than farming as then prac- 
tised. 

At the age of twelve his parents permitted him 
to attend the academy ; and he used to walk daily 
two miles each way over a hilly road, carrying his 
books under his arm, meanwhile helping his father 
in farm-work at spare hours. In New England 
sixty or seventy years ago school-books were 
neither so common nor so cheap, it must be re- 
membered, as they now are. To purchase a geog- 
raphy and atlas, this young scholar went into the 
woods with an axe, and, cutting- a cord of wood, 
hauled it to the Corner, where, for two dollars, he 
unloaded and delivered it at the purchaser's door. 
Says Judge Ira A. Eastman, who, though his jun- 
ior at the academy, remembers the circumstance, 
" I do not think he did this from necessity (be- 
cause his father was a man of considerable means 
for those days), but from an ambitious and most 
commendable desire not to bring upon his father 



Memoir. 1 5 

any more charges than he could help. In those 
times the feeling and disposition of young men, 
farmers' sons, generally, was to help forward the 
interests of parents and the household, and to pay 
all their own expenses when it could possibly be 
done." 

At this date nearly a hundred pupils of various 
ages, about equally divided between the sexes, 
attended the academy at Gilmanton. The repu- 
tation of the school depended entirely upon the 
capacity and experience of the single preceptor 
who happened to be in charge. Fortunately for 
our young friend, during his entire course of eight 
years he continued under the instruction of Mr. 
Andrew Mack, a Dartmouth graduate, who was a 
gentleman of much aptitude for teaching, and of 
scholarly and refined instincts. Asa McFarland, 
Esq., of Concord, a fellow-student, says of Mr. 
Hackett: " I was a boarder in the family of Dea- 
con Joseph French, and sat at the same table with 
Mr. Mack, the principal : I remember particularly 
the commendation Mr. Mack bestowed upon him 
for his perseverance in acquiring useful knowl- 
edge." He showed proficiency alike in the clas- 
sics and mathematics, and was especially fond of 
English composition. With a view of gaining 
ease, if not elegance, in style, he applied himself 
to a critical study of the best authors : yet it is to 
be feared that the inexperienced youth was left to 
grope his way along this path with very slender 
assistance ; for in that day little or no attention 



1 6 Memoir. 

was paid, even in our colleges, to the art of writ- 
ing good English, — still less could be expected 
at this country academy. Blair's Rhetoric, it is 
true, was put into the hands of pupils for a text- 
book, and they were told to acquaint themselves 
with the pages of "The Spectator " as a model of 
style ; but the use of plain Anglo-Saxon, and a 
familiarity with natural and unaffected forms of 
expression, if acquired at all, were not due to 
teaching. It is a subject of regret that one, the 
current of whose thought runs so clearlv, was 
denied in his youth the benefit of a rigid train- 
ing" in this direction. 

Brilliant in no single branch of study, but an 
apt scholar in all, he of course felt the spur of 
ambition. The facility with which he maintained 
hiofh rank among" his classmates warrants the 
belief that honorable distinction would have 
marked his career at college. But to go to col- 
lege was out of the question : his father lacked 
means to send him, and there was nowhere to 
look for assistance. The disappointment must 
have been hard to bear ; yet no one ever heard 
Mr. Hackett indulge in the expression of those 
vain regrets not uncommon with men of con- 
scious ability who have been compelled to forego 
the full advantag"es of a liberal education. 

Society at Gilmanton, though limited in point 
of numbers, compared favorably with that of many 
larger towns. Judge Nathan Crosby of Lowell, 
who at this date knew it well, observes: "The 



Memoir. 17 

place was quite distinguished for its social culture 
and amenities. The Moodys, Beans, Badgers, 
Coggswells, Frenches, Greeleys, and Eastmans 
were for those days people of marked character 
for intelligence, wealth, and refinement." The 
presence of these families could not fail to elevate 
the standard both of scholarship and deportment 
at an institution designed for their sons and 
daughters, and engrossing so large a share of the 
life of the village. Prompted by an affectionate 
nature, Mr. Hackett attached himself to certain 
of his school-fellows with a warmth and fidelity 
that led to friendships lifelong in duration, — of 
whom may be mentioned the names of Charles 
H. Peaslee, John A. Burleigh, Dixi Crosby and 
his brother Alpheus, Ira A. Eastman, and Asa 
McFarland. 

To defray the expenses of his education he 
resorted to school-keeping, an occupation con- 
genial to his tastes, and in which he achieved a 
eratifvinpf success. His first venture of conse- 
quence was at North Barnstead, when he was only 
eighteen ; and, upon returning home after three 
months' absence, he paid over his entire salary, 
thirty dollars, to his father. Nearly half a century 
later, on the occasion of deliverino- a memorial 
address in the old Smith meeting-house at Gil- 
manton, he recalled this circumstance in language 
nearly as follows: "I remember distinctly how 
happy and light-hearted I felt as I passed this 
church just at dusk, and looked up at these same 



1 8 Memoir. 

windows through which the hght is streaming 
to-day. In the years that have since passed, I 
have been paid for my services somewhat more 
Hberally ; but certainly no fee that I have received 
in my profession, however large, ever gave me 
the feeling of glad independence I experienced 
that evening, as I went home with thirty dollars in 
my pocket, the remuneration for three months of 
faithful labor." He also kept school acceptably 
for several terms at Gilmanton Corner.' 

Mr. Hackett had early conceived the purpose 
of dedicating himself to the law. " I should 
never," he years after wrote, " have quitted farm- 
ing (which I regard as the happiest occupation for 
those suited to it), if I had not felt that I must 
be a lawyer or nobody." Stephen Moody, Esq., 
a graduate of Harvard College, and for many 
years solicitor for the county of Strafford, was 
then the only lawyer in active practice at Gilman- 
ton Corner. This gentleman took a kindly inter- 
est in the aspirations of his young townsman, at 
whose disposal he placed his small law library. 
Mr. Hackett, before leaving the academy, had 
thus begun to read systematically text-books of 
the law, although his name was never formally 
entered in Mr. Moody's office as a student. At 
the age of tw^enty he went to the little village of 
Sanbornton Square, about nine miles from home, 

^ It was when a schoolmaster that he became expert in what is now 
one of the lost arts ; namely, making a pen from a goose-quill. All his 
life he wrote with no other than a quill-pen. 



Memoir. 1 9 

to read law with Matthew Perkins, Esq., a gentle- 
man of respectable legal attainments, who treated 
him with great kindness and generosity. Here 
he devoted a year and a half to study, receiving 
board and lodging in the family of his preceptor 
in return for such service as he could render in 
the routine of office practice. From the first, 
however, he had kept steadily in view the inten- 
tion of completing his law studies in the town 
where he was to make his future home. 

The bar of Rockingham County at that period 
held out to a young lawyer attractions not easily 
resisted ; for, notwithstanding her entry upon 
a mercantile decline, Portsmouth still offered a 
promising field for professional success. Daniel 
Webster had but recently removed to Boston ; 
Levi Woodbury, though upon the bench, kept his 
office open for students, of whom one was des- 
tined to become President of the United States. 
That great master of the common law was there, 
— Jeremiah Mason, the head of the bar of New 
England, who had honored Portsmouth for a quar- 
ter of a century with his residence. Ichabod 
Bardett, Edward Cutts, and N. A. Haven, Jr., 
not to mention others of less distinction, enjoyed 
there a large and lucrative practice ; while at 
Exeter, the other shire-town of the county, lived 
the brilliant George Sullivan. Mr. Mason and 
Mr. Bartlett were in the habit of trying causes to 
the jury upon the circuit as opposing counsel, — 
a circumstance that suffices to denote what rank 



20 Memoir. 

the latter maintained at the bar. Still it deserves 
further to be said of Ichabod Bartlett, that his 
adroit handling of witnesses, and consummate 
tact in getting a case well laid open to the jury, 
had, not less than his eloquence, given him a 
wide and exalted reputation, — talents by the 
display of which he was soon to win upon the 
floor of Congress the title of " The Randolph of 
the North." The court of Strafford County was 
accustomed to hold one or more terms a year at 
Gilmanton for the trial of jury causes, and here 
our young candidate for professional honors had 
listened with admiration to the famous Mr. Bart- 
lett. In spite of grave doubts entertained by his 
grandfather Young as to the wisdom of going so 
far away to live, Mr. Hackett ventured to apply to 
this distino-uished advocate for leave to enter his 
office as a student, and to his great joy received 
a favorable response. 

The month of April, 1822, found him ready to 
leave his home. With her own hands his mother 
had made a new homespun suit, which, together 
with a change of clothes in a bundle, and three 
dollars in money, comprised his outfit. His father 
took him in a wasfon over the familiar road to the 
Corner, and to the top of a steep hill beyond. 
Here they parted company ; for it was the son's 
own choice to accomplish on foot the forty miles 
that remained. By nightfall the traveller had 
reached North wood, where he met a hearty 
welcome at the house of Mrs. Eben Coe, whom 



Memoir. 21 

he had known at Gllmanton. and whose husband 
carried on an extensive business as a country 
trader. It happened that one of Mr. Coe's 
clerks, u^hose home was at Portsmouth, had 
arranged to drive thither the next day ; and Mr. 
Hackett did not dechne the offer of a convey- 
ance. Upon reaching theif journey's end the 
youthful stranger alighted at the Farmers' Hotel, 
on Pleasant Street (where the custom-house now 
stands), and bade adieu to his companion, — the 
only person whose acquaintance he could claim 
in all the town, 

Mr. Bartlett's law offices were at the corner 
of Bow and Fore Streets, " up stairs," as the 
directory (published by Wibird Penhallow in 
1821, "a new thing in this place") informs us, 
with a quaint precision. Francis O. J. Smith was 
already there as a student : he subsequently prac- 
tised law at Portland, was three times a repre- 
sentative in Congress from Maine, and later in 
life became largely interested in telegraphs. Mr. 
Hackett now entered upon a course of advanced 
study, and took charge of nearly all the office 
practice. His biographical sketch of Brewster 
makes a passing allusion to this first year at 
Portsmouth. " It was the fashion," he observes, 
" for apprentices, as well as law-students, to work 
evenings. It was my practice, upon leaving Mr. 
Bartlett's office toward ten o'clock on P'riday even- 
inofs, to eo into the journal office, and make a 
friendly call upon Mr. Brewster, see him ' work 



22 Memoir. 

off,' as he called it, the inside of the Journal, and 
ascertain if any article which he or I had written 
had passed the editorial ordeal." From the same 
source we learn that the following young gentle- 
men (nearly all of them college graduates, and 
sons of w^ealthy parents) were studying law at 
other offices in the town: with Mason, — his 
son, George W. Mason, Lory Odell, John Elwyn, 
Charles W. Cutter, Samuel P. Long, Hampden 
Cutts, Thomas Currier, and William A. Walker ; 
with Woodbury, — Franklin Pierce, John Thomp- 
son, and Joseph W.White; with Haven, — Alfred 
W. Haven; with Cutts, — J. Trask Woodbury; 
and wdth Claggett, — Jonas Cutting. 

Upon the fees earned in petty office-business, 
added to something got by teaching private pupils 
at odd hours, he contrived to live respectably, and 
to keep out of debt. With the approach of win- 
ter, however, he deemed it prudent to resume 
school-keeping, and accordingly returned to Gil- 
manton. When he came back to Portsmouth in 
the spring, it was to find new duties and respon- 
sibilities awaiting him consequent upon Mr. Bart- 
lett's election to Congress ; and he entered gladly 
with fresh energies upon this wider field of exer- 
tion. 

The 2ist of May, 1823, marked the completion 
of two centuries since David Thompson planted 
at the seaside, upon what is now Odiorne's Point, 
Portsmouth, the first settlement of New Hamp- 
shire. The recurrence of the day was celebrated 



Memoir. 23 

in a style and with a zeal befitting so interesting 
an historical event. N. A. Haven, Jr., was the 
orator, and Oliver W. B. Peabody of Exeter, the 
poet of the day. A brilliant ball in the evening, 
attended by nearly four hundred persons, where 
grandsire and grand-daughter danced In the same 
set, closed the festivities of an occasion long to 
be remembered in the annals of the town. Of 
those who took part in the commemoration, two 
hundred and forty-five ladies and gentlemen in- 
scribed their names (and, with few exceptions, 
their ages) upon a parchment roll which re- 
mained till a recent day in good preservation. 
Among the signatures were those of Jeremiah 
Mason, Daniel Webster, Joseph Story, and John 
G. Palfrey. Mr. Hackett was one of the young- 
est present ; and fifty years later he acted as the 
chairman of a committee to summon the surviv- 
ors, then numbering about two score, to partici- 
pate in the spirited celebration of July 4th, 1873. 
An institution of kindred date with these com- 
memorative exercises, and the outgrowth of a 
sentiment then fully awakened, is the New Hamp- 
shire Historical Society, a meeting for whose or- 
ganization was held at Portsmouth on the 20th 
of May, 1823. Though Mr. Hackett did not be- 
come a member of the society till twelve years 
later, he happened to be present at this initial 
meeting, — a circumstance to which he fitly alluded 
upon the observance of the semi-centennial anni- 
versary, at Concord in 1873, when there was liv- 



24 Memoir. 

ing but one of the thirty-one original members. 
This association had no warmer friend than Mr. 
Hackett, whose earnest and unceasing efforts in 
promoting the objects of its creation did much to 
enlarge the sphere of its usefulness, and to place 
it upon the sure footing which it now maintains. 
He was chosen vice-president in i860, and served 
as president from 1861 to 1866. Amos Hadley, 
Esq., recording secretary', writes as follows of his 
attendance at the annual meeting in 1878 : " He 
was called to the chair in the absence of the 
president, and presided with that urbane dignity 
and singular readiness which ever distinguished 
him in the chair of deliberative bodies. He 
wore his years so youthfully even, that no one 
of us in that large meeting had the remotest 
thought that it woulci be the last attendance of 
one who had been for years so prompt and con- 
stant in his presence, and so true and wise in act 
and counsel tending to promote the welfare of 
the society." 

About the time that Mr. Hackett made Ports- 
mouth his home, the condition of the public 
schools of the town had become a subject of well- 
founded complaint ; for frequent changes in the 
office of instructor had resulted in nothino; but 
laxity of discipline and general inefficiency. The 
school committee, composed of the best citizens, 
emphatically condemned the policy of doling out 
a meagre compensation : they insisted that sala- 
ries should be offered larQ^e enough to induce a 



Memoir. 25 

teacher fit for the office to remain in it perma- 
nently. At this juncture a vacancy occurred in 
the mastership of the high school, and Mr. Hack- 
ett consented to assume that position for a brief 
season, devoting his evenings meanwhile to the 
law. His administration restored perfect order, 
and the scholars made rapid progress in their 
studies : in fact, such general satisfaction at- 
tended his method of instruction, that upon the 
eve of his retirement, after three months' service, 
the committee earnestly desired him to consider 
the situation a permanent one at an annual salary 
of six hundred dollars. This flattering offer he 
gratefully but firmly declined. When his good 
friends in the country heard of it, they were sorely 
exercised, and did not hesitate to predict that he 
had made the mistake of a lifetime. 

But his interest in the cause of education by 
no means ceased when he laid aside the duties of 
teacher. For some years he continued to perform 
more than his fair share of labor upon the school 
committee ; and to the close of his life he mani- 
fested a personal solicitude in the success of the 
public schools of a higher grade. When the class 
of 1873, at their graduation, instituted the Ports- 
mouth High School Association of the Alumni, 
they came to Mr. Hackett, and asked him to 
accept the presidency, which he gladly did. A 
day or two only before the confinement of his last 
illness, he exerted himself to be present at the 
annual gathering, in order not to disappoint his 



26 Memoir. 

young friends. In such harmony were his spirits 
with the occasion, that no one could have sus- 
pected his being, in truth, far from well. Con- 
tenting himself with a single word of remark, 
he felicitated the association upon its prosperous 
condition, and added, with wonted good-humor, 
" I congratulate you also that you have a presi- 
dent who can make a very short speech on a very 
hot night." ' 

In 1824 the State Senate chose Mr. Hackett 
their assistant clerk, and re-elected him the suc- 
ceeding year. He also served one term as clerk 
of the Senate, in 1828. The late George S. Hil- 
lard, to whose most competent hand was intrusted 
the preparation of a memoir of Jeremiah Mason, 
acknowledged his indebtedness to Mr. Hackett 
for many interesting reminiscences, and among 
them the following : The House had, in Novem- 
ber, 1824, expressed their choice of Mr. Mason as 



^ A pleasing incident of the celebration in 1873 ought to find place 
here : the Portsmouth High School has long had no more dutiful or 
affectionate son among her graduates than James T. Fields, who has made 
her the recipient of many a substantial favor. The presiding officer had 
introduced the poet of the day as "James T. Fields, Esquire, of Ports- 
mouth, temporarily sojourning at Boston." That gentleman began to read 
some admirable verses, but had not proceeded far, when, suddenly turn- 
ing to the president, he said amid applause, — 

" Fm conning my Virgil. That's cool — 

My Virgil ? 'Twas yours, my good friend. 
The copy you studied at school, 
And afterwards kept it to lend." 

The next clay Mr. Hackett took from his library the well-worn copy 
of Virgil Delphini, and sent it as a present to Mr. Fields, — an act which 
elicited a warm and graceful letter of thanks. 



Memoir. 27 

United States senator ; and the Senate, after 
several ballotings, elected William Plumer, Jr., 
who was at that time a member of Congress. 
Mr. Hackett bore to the House the message 
that the Honorable Senate had concurred in pass- 
ing the House resolution, after striking out the 
words " Jeremiah Mason " and inserting " William 
Plumer, Jr.," making the formal announcement 
by addressing the speaker. As he turned to go 
back to the Senate chamber, Mr. Mason, who was 
standing before the fire in a corner of the Repre- 
sentatives' hall, said with a smile, " Good-morn- 
ing, Mr. Hackett : you propose, I see, a trifling 
amendment." 

He was admitted to the bar in the month of 
January, 1826, upon motion of N. A. Haven, Jr., 
who soon afterward invited him to form a law 
partnership, — a proposal he was only too happy 
to accept. The intellectual resources, elegant 
scholarship, and catholic tastes, that distinguished 
this amiable man, would have enriched with pre- 
cious advantages an association of a purely busi- 
ness character ; but Mr. Hackett, besides looking 
to him as an exemplar of what was best and high- 
est in the profession, had already experienced the 
inestimable worth of his personal friendship. This 
privileged relation, however, was destined to be 
transitory indeed ; for it pleased God to remove 
Mr. Haven in June of that year, at the early age 
of thirty-six. No event at Portsmouth has ever 
moved the entire community to such profound 



28 Memoir. 

and sincere grief, — and justly; for the death of 
such a man was a great public loss. The memory 
of Nathaniel Appleton Haven, Jr., is transmitted 
to this generation by a published volume of his 
writings, prefaced with a memoir from the pen of 
his friend and classmate, the late George Ticknor. 
Mr. Hackett, for the remainder of his life, a period 
of fifty-two years, continued at the bar without an 
associate in business. 

This brief connection, however, had enhanced 
the reputation of the surviving partner ; and his 
practice took on a steady growth. Yet the labor 
he exacted of himself did not debar him from the 
enjoyments of society, of which he was very fond. 
He was married on the 21st of December, 1826, 
by Rev. Dr. Parker of the South Parish, to Olive, 
second daughter of Joseph Warren and Hannah 
(Nutter) Pickering.' His father-in-law was a 
lineal descendant of John Pickering, who came 
from England to Massachusetts, and thence, in 
1636, to Portsmouth, where he was a prominent 
citizen and the owner of a large tract of land at 
the south part of the town, known as " Picker- 
ing's Neck." The young couple at once began 
housekeeping at the dwelling-house on Congress 
Street, near Islington, where they lived in un- 

I Their children were William Henry, a lawyer of Portsmouth ; Mari- 
anna, wife of Robert Cutts Pierce of Portsmouth ; Frank Warren, a law- 
yer of Portsmouth and Washington, D.C. ; and Ellen Louisa, wife of Eben 
Morgan Stoddard of Ledyard, Conn. Clara Coues (1832) and Charles 
Parker (1S34) died in early infancy. — See New England Historical 
AND Genealogical Register for January, 1879. 



Memoir. 29 

broken contentment, and witnessed the changes 
around them of more than half a century. So 
strong was the attachment Mr. Hackett conceived 
for this spot, that he never could be induced to 
remove from it. He enlarged and improved the 
house to accommodate his family ; but the old 
place retained its familiar features, and was to him 
always " home." It may be added here that Mr. 
Hackett was a member of the church of the South 
(Unitarian) Parish since 1826, and occupied the 
same pew for upwards of fifty years. 

Portsmouth in that day was noted for its social 
attractions ; and he was at no loss to find acquaint- 
ances of his own age, congenial to his tastes. 
"About the year 1820," to quote from his me- 
moir of Halliburton, " several young men started 
the plan of forming a forensic club. It met once 
a week, and was well sustained for several years. 
At each meeting an essay was read : some ques- 
tion which had been previously proposed was then 
discussed in writing by a member upon each side. 
The subject was afterwards opened to general dis- 
cussion ; and, being remarked upon by the presi- 
dent, the question was determined by a vote of the 
club. The meetings were open to the friends of 
the members, and were generally well attended." 
Upon the re-organization of this club in 1826, 
Mr. Hackett served as director and secretary, 
and afterwards became president.' Visitors were 

^ The following are the names of officers and members of the Forensic 
Club as they appear at the date of the re-organizatiou in 1826: Andrew 



30 Memoir. 

attracted in large numbers to the "Forensic" 
hall in the Academy, till it came to rival the assem- 
bly rooms as a fashionable place of resort. The 
papers read were of more than ordinary merit ; 
and, to judge from certain records kept by Mr. 
Hackett in a neat and regular hand, the debates 
must have been animated and profitable. No 
doubt the young lawyers, like those of the famous 
"Robin Hood" debating society, regarded this 
forum as an excellent trainine-school for future 
contests at the bar. 

During the early part of Mr. Hackett's profes- 
sional career, Portsmouth exhibited considerable 
commercial activity, notwithstanding her fortunes 
as a seaport were already upon the wane. The 
railroad system, which subsequently diverted trade 
into new channels, had as yet no existence ; and 
trains of teams were still to be seen making the 
journey from the interior to tide-water at Ports- 
mouth, or slowly returning, laden with West India 
goods and other supplies. It was not the custom 
to pay cash for purchases ; the merchant taking 
from the country trader his notes of hand, which 
in many instances found their way into suit for 
collection. Inasmuch as a debtor's property was 

Halliburton, /V^j/V/i'///; Charles W. Cutter, Vice-President ; William H. Y. 
Hackett, Secretary and Treasurer. These three gentlemen, with Hamp- 
den Cutts and Orange Clark, constituted the Board of Directors. The 
remaining members were : Ebenezer Wheelwright, Eben L. Childs, Wil- 
liam L. Pickering, Thomas A. Adams, Edward Rundlet, Addison Brown, 
Calvin B. Magoun, Silas Durkee, Charles W. Chauncey, Joseph W. 
White, Rufus Claggett, Tobias H. Miller, Samuel E. Cones, Charles B. 
Goodrich, Baron Stow, Ichabod Bartlett, Samuel P. Long, Lory Odell. 



Menioi}\ 3 1 

liable to be attached upon mesne process, and as 
the judgment secured by the earliest attachment 
was first satisfied in full, it followed that the 
sliofhtest rumor of failing circumstances was the 
signal for creditors to vie with each other in 
gaining priority in the service of the writ, — an 
advantage calling for vigilance and enterprise on 
the part of an attorne\-, and leading sometimes, 
it must be confessed, to " sharp practice." The 
following anecdote illustrates how a young prac- 
titioner once bore himself in an emergency of 
this sort. 

We have already narrated, that, when Mr. 
Hackett left his home to seek his fortune, he 
passed a night upon the road at the house of Mr. 
Eben Coe of Northwood. As he was taking leave 
the next morning, Mrs. Coe said jocosely, " You're 
going to be a lawyer. Now, remember, if any of 
my husband's notes come into your office, you 
won't sue them without letting him know before- 
hand." Mr. Coe's credit, it ought to be explained, 
stood as high as that of any business-man in the 
State. Some five years later, when the hard times 
caused frequent failures, and long after this inci- 
dent had faded from memory, a client one day 
called upon Mr. Hackett to bring suit forthwith 
upon several notes, among which there happened 
to be one bearing the signature of Mr. Coe. 
Having filled out the wTits, Mr. Hackett left his 
office, and was upon the point of putting the 
papers into the hands of the sheriff, when the 



32 Memoir. 

parting- remark of Mrs. Coe flashed across him. 
Four hundred dollars were involved, and his in- 
structions were peremptory. Losing not a mo- 
ment, he took a horse and chaise, and set out 
with the officer for Northwood. On arrival, he 
left his companion at the tavern, and went alone 
to Mr. Coe's house. That gentleman was absent 
from town ; but Mrs. Coe, upon learning the oc- 
casion of the visit, represented that an attachment 
would inevitably bring down upon her husband 
demands from all his creditors, and ruin him ; 
whereas, with a little forbearance, she felt sure 
every dollar would be paid. The young man had 
to act promptly, A brief pause, — and he had de- 
cided what course to pursue. Assuring Mrs. Coe 
that her husband should suffer no harm, he bade 
her good-day, and returned with the officer to 
Portsmouth. When the bank opened the next 
morning he drew out the amount of his deposit, — 
all the money he had in the world. This was one- 
half of what the note called for. Writing his own 
promissory note for the other half, he was enabled, 
by the friendly indorsement of Isaac Waldron, 
president of the Portsmouth Bank, to take to his 
office four hundred dollars in bank-bills. As he 
had anticipated, the client soon came in, when a 
colloquy ensued nearly as follows : — 

Client. — Well, squire, have you secured my 
note ? 

Mr. Hackctt. — Yes, oh, yes ! 



Memoir. 33 

Client. — What have you got it on to ? 

Mr. H. {taking from his desk a roil of hank- 
bills). — This is what I've got it on to. 

Client {astonisJied). — Why, what does this 
mean ? If I'd supposed he was that kind of a 
man, I wouldn't have sued him. 

Mr. H. — You or anybody else ought to be 
ashamed to sue a man hke Mr. Coe, when you 
coukl get your money by calhng for it. 

Client. — That's so, squire : I am ashamed. I'm 
sorry tor it. 

Mr. Hackett then told him it was no more than 
right that he should pay the expenses, which he 
was glad enough to do ; and he went his way, 
grateful to his counsel, and full of kindly impulses 
toward his late debtor. Within forty-eight hours 
Mr. Coe made his appearance, pale and agitated. 
His first words were, " Mr. Hackett, have you 
sued me ? " — " Oh, no ! " was the cheering reply. 
" I'm all right, then," added the other, opening 
his wallet: "I've got the money here; but, if 
you'd sued me, 'twould have started ever)'body 
else, and " — With this he laid down a sum far 
exceeding the debt, and begged Mr. Hackett to 
help himself to a liberal fee. The young lawyer, 
however, took pleasure in refusing to let him bear 
any expense whatever : " for that," said he proudly, 
" I shamed out of my client." 

There is a class of worthy citizens who view 
with apprehension what they conceive to be a 
degeneracy in the tone of the political press of 



34 Memoir. 

to-day. They deplore the fact that officials in 
high station are vilified with a recklessness and 
persistency (as they assume) heretofore un- 
equalled ; and they dread lest this torrent of 
abuse may drive decent men out of politics alto- 
gether. It would allay their fears, however, to 
bring to light, from the files of party journals 
half a century old, specimens of the devices, the 
flaming head-lines, daggers, and coffins to which 
newspapers of that day resorted for the purpose 
of stigmatizing their political opponents ; and 
they would find candidates surviving the most 
bitter attacks made upon their personal character, 
and apparently not much the worse therefor. 
Noble slanderers lived before Thersites. 

These reflections come into mind upon looking 
over an extended report of what was, for its day, 
in New Hampshire, a famous libel suit, — Upham 
vs. Barton and Hill. The Whigs in 1830 had 
nominated General Timothy Upham of Ports- 
mouth as their candidate for o-overnor, — an able 
and trusted leader, who for some years had credit- 
ably filled the office of collector of the port. In 
the heat of the campaign " The New Hampshire 
Patriot," the organ of the Democracy at the State 
capital, charged the Whig nominee with the crime, 
of smuggling. General Upham promptly retained 
Mr. Hackett to brincj a suit for defamation 
against the publishers, — the name of one of 
whom, Isaac Hill, yet survives in the traditions of 
political warfare in New England. Though the 



Memoir. 35 

accusation was proved at the trial to have been 
niahciously false, it was impossible to reach a ver- 
dict, the juries at two successive terms failing to 
agree. Of course, the counsel respectively rep- 
resented opposite political parties : for General 
Upham appeared Messrs. Mason, Cutts, Bartlett, 
and Hackett ; for the defendants, Messrs, Sullivan 
(then attorney-general), Cushman, and Claggett. 
It may be added in this relation that " The 
Patriot " took frequent opportunity to assail Mr. 
Bartlett and his former student (now rising into 
prominence as a Whig leader), invariably intro- 
ducing to its readers the names of "I. Bartlett" 
and " W. H. Y. Hackett " as " Personal Pronoun 
Bartlett" and "Alphabet Hackett," — a conceit 
as harmless as at this distance of time it appears 
amusing. 

Another interesting reminiscence of his fifty- 
two years at the bar is the Bradbury Cilley will 
case, tried at Exeter in October, 1833, before 
Chief Justice Joel Parker, by an array of eminent 
counsel, of whom Mr. Hackett had long been the 
last survivor. The trial, which was an appeal to 
the jury from the decree of the probate court sus- 
taining the will, lasted more than a week, during 
which upwards of a hundred witnesses were ex- 
amined ; and the parish meeting-house, tempora- 
rily converted into a court-room, was crowded 
with those in attendance, many of whom were 
ladies. For the appellants appeared Messrs, 
Hackett, Sullivan, and Mason ; for the appellees, 



2,6 Memoir. 

Messrs. Bell, Ciitts, Atherton, and Webster. Mr. 
Mason addressed the jury for four hours, while 
Mr. Webster consumed about six hours ; and both 
efforts were masterly displays of forensic elo- 
quence. The jury found for the appellees. Mr. 
Hackett used to relate the following incident of 
this trial : being junior counsel, he read the 
pleadings at the opening ; and as he descended 
from the platform to return to one of the pews 
in front, an elderly member of the bar, then re- 
tired from practice, motioned to him with some 
concern in his countenance. Mr. Hackett, as he 
leaned ov-er to hear what was to come, could 
scarcely conceal his amusement at the monition, 
" I am afraid, sir, that Mr. Mason is not aware 
what a ereat mistake he is makinor to undertake 
this case at his time of life." (Mr. Mason was just 
sixty- five.) 

Mr. Hackett as counsel for one of the banks 
in the town became much interested in the sub- 
ject of banking. As early as July, 1827, he en- 
tered the board of directors of the Piscataqua 
Bank, and served continuously as a director for 
the rest of his life, — a period of fifty-one years, 
outliving every one of fifty-nine gentlemen who 
were at that date officers of banks in Portsmouth. 
In January, 1845, ^ipoi^ the organization of the 
Piscataqua Exchange Bank, he became . its presi- 
dent, and held that office till Aueiist, 186^, when 
the charter expired. He was an earnest promoter 
of the national bank system, and frequently com- 



Memoir. 37 

munlcated with his friend Secretary Chase, in 
person and by correspondence, upon the details 
of the project. While the act creating these 
institutions was pending in Congress, he made 
arrangements to organize a national bank at Ports- 
mouth, and awaited for their completion the news 
of its passage. He at once assumed, and retained 
through life, the presidency of the First National 
Bank of Portsmouth, which claims the honor of 
being the first national bank organized in the 
country.' At the date of his death he was senior 
trustee of the Portsmouth Savings Bank,^ — one 
of the oldest institutions of the kind in the Union ; 
and president of the Piscataqua Savings Bank, 
chartered largely by his efforts, which went into 
operation in April, 1878. His continuous term 
of service as president of a discount bank doubt- 
less exceeded that of any similar official in the 
.United States. 

He permitted nothing, however, to interfere 
witji the regular and uniform despatch of business ; 



' Samuel Lord, Esq., was cashier of the old Piscataqua Bank when 
Mr. Hackett became a director of that institution ; and he held a similar 
office in each of the succeeding banks till his death, in 187 1. To the finan- 
cial wisdom of this courteous gentleman much of the success of these 
more than usually prosperous corporations is justly due, and especially to 
the circumstance that the two friends were ever harmonious in thought 
and action. 

^ The Portsmouth Savings Bank began business in 1823, and on the 
17th December of that year a deposit of j5 20 was made, which is still 
undisturbed, and which amounted, July i, 1879, to the sum of $536.86. 
Almost from the beginning Mr. Hackett was its solicitor. In 1S69 he con- 
tributed an interesting article thereon to Keyes' History of Savings Banks, 
Vol. I. page 201. 



38 Memoir. 

and his practice, as may be imagined, grew exten- 
sive and varied, both in the State and Federal 
courts, and before committees of the Legislature. 
In his early years the bulk of litigation, as al- 
ready intimated, was of a commercial character, a 
fair share of which fell to him. At a later period 
the investment of capital in railroads and manu- 
factories, together with the creation of trusts, 
introduced new subjects of legal investigation 
and controversy, in dealing with which his acumen 
and practical good sense were of great value to 
his clients. Few causes involving property to 
any considerable amount have been litigated in 
that part of New Hampshire during the last half- 
century, in which he had not been retained of 
counsel. He was admitted to the bar of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, December 
13, 1 86 1, on motion of Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, 
and successfully argued one or two important 
causes before that tribunal. 

The leisure moments of the life we are ik)w 
contemplating found nowhere so constant and 
congenial employment as within the walls of the 
Portsmouth Athenseum, — an institution that owed 
its origin to a need, early felt in the town, of a 
substantial library for general reading. The act 
of incorporation limits the number of shareholders 
to one hundred : Mr. Hackett's membership dates 
from 1826, when ten years had converted the ex- 
periment into an assured success. A rigid, criti- 
cal taste has uniformly governed the choice of 



Memoir. 39 

books, resulting- in the present collection of four- 
teen thousand volumes unrivalled, it is believed, 
in quality by any general library of similar extent 
in the United States. The Athenaeum buildingf 
looked south upon the Parade, or public square 
of the town ; and a spacious, old-fashioned apart- 
ment in the second story accommodated the libra- 
ry. The visitor, if need were, could rely upon the 
kindly aid of the late John Elwyn, an erudite 
scholar who spent the greater part of his life 
among these books (many of which were gifts 
from him), and to whom was accredited not only 
a familiarity with the precise location of every 
volume upon the shelves, but an exhaustive 
knowledge of its contents. Till within a few 
years (when a furnace was introduced, and other 
changes effected), the reading-room on the 
ground-floor presented of a winter afternoon or 
evening the picture of comfort, in the wood-fire 
that blazed upon the hearth, the arm-chairs that 
stood invitingly in semicircle, and the roomy stalls 
on either side the door as you entered, like those 
of a London coffee-house. Sir William Pepperell 
of Louisburg celebrity, and a trio of British 
admirals, rich in blue and scarlet, — Sir Peter 
Warren, Sir Charles Knowles, and Sir Richard 
Spry, all ruftied and belaced, and grasping sword 
or official spy-glass, — these, and other worthies 
of a bygone period, looked majestically down from 
the canvas in antique frames begrimed with years. 
Files of newspapers lay aslant on high red desks. 



40 Memoir. 

— staid and sober journals, such as "The National 
Intelligencer," " The Philadelphia North Ameri- 
can," " The New York Courier and Enquirer," 
and " The Boston Daily Advertiser." And, as if 
they had strayed from some counting-room down 
by the wharves, there were long-legged stools, 
designed for the convenience of those who took 
their time to possess themselves of the current 
news and the editorial wisdom of the day. In 
this stronghold of conservatism one might almost 
gauge the popularity of each sheet by inspection 
of the hollows worn away in the floor in front. 

It was the custom of the prominent business 
and professional men of the town, with a sprin- 
kling of retired sea-captains, at the close of the 
business day to drop into the Athenaeum for a 
social chat. Here local public opinion crystallized, 
and events both domestic and foreign came up 
for intelligent and temperate discussion. Here 
minds of diverse training and habits of thought 
got the benefit of mutual attrition, the scholar 
coming down from the library to compare his 
views with that of the man of affairs ; and conver- 
sation took on the character of an interchanee of 
ideas, never degenerating into mere idle gossip. 
Mr. Hackett could nearly always be counted upon 
to form one of this company ; and what with his 
apt stories, his sensible comment, and his flashes 
of wit, few surpassed him in' fine social qualities, 
while no one contributed more to the general 
enjoyment. One by one these gentlemen of 



Memoir. 4 1 

the old school passed away till he found himself 
almost the last survivor. 

Mr. Hackett never abandoned the practice, 
begun by him when a law student, of writing for 
the press. At frequent intervals, during more 
than fifty years, his ready pen, sometimes for 
weeks in succession, enriched the columns of 
"The Portsmouth Journal" with thoughtful and 
timely articles that appeared as leading editorials ; 
and this, too, when the field had not yet come 
to be occupied everywhere by the overshadowing 
presence of the metropolitan newspaper. In 1842 
he testified the interest he felt in the temperance 
cause by assuming, in company with a few other 
gentlemen, the editorship of "The Washingto- 
nian," — a sprightly sheet, the representative at 
Portsmouth of a class of publications that had 
sprung into existence all over the country in 
advocacy of moral suasion. At this post of duty, 
which required such occasional contributions only 
as his leisure could conveniently supply, he re- 
mained for about two years. It is characteristic 
of the man, that writino- as he did while a moral 
crusade was at its height, and in a seaport town 
where the evils of intemperance presented their 
grossest features, he never once suffered his ear- 
nestness to betray him into the use of language 
in the least degree harsh or denunciatory. 

In 1847, at the request of the family of the late 
Andrew Halliburton of Portsmouth, he prepared 
a memoir to accompany a collection, privately 



42 Memoir. 

printed, of that g-entleman's essays. By profes- 
sion a bank cashier, Mr. HalHbiirton was a man 
of considerable mental vigor, of fine literary taste, 
and of simple habits. The writer, having to deal 
with a life devoid of incident, ventures to make 
his sketch almost exclusively a critical analysis of 
character, and proceeds, with a confidence begot- 
ten of the closest intimacy, to lay bare the work- 
ings of Mr. Halliburton's mind, to wei^h his 

O ' <_> 

motives, and formulate his rules of conduct. 
And it must be admitted that in the performance 
of this delicate task he has achieved remarkable 
success ; though, as one reads, the impression 
deepens that the author is here unconsciously 
revealing much of his own character under the 
guise of that of his friend. 

Credit is likewise due him for an interesting 
and valuable biographical sketch of the late 
Charles W. Brewster, to whom those who love 
the olden time are grateful for two delightful 
volumes of antiquarian reminiscences, entitled 
" Rambles about Portsmouth." This sketch, pre- 
pared soon after Mr. Brewster's decease, will be 
found prefixed to the second series of the " Ram- 
bles," published in 1869. With a free yet dis- 
criminating hand Mr. Hackett brings out the 
features of his lifelong friend so strikingly, that 
every future reader of these volumes may feel 
himself at once on the footing of farhiliar ac- 
quaintance with their genial and modest author. 
There is pleasure in the thought that one who 



Memoir. 43 

has so industriously peopled the canvas with 
noteworthy personages of the past two centuries 
is himself depicted by a master not less skilled 
in the art. 

It was his fortune to furnish, year after year, 
obituary and quasi-biographical notices of friends 
or townsmen ; and perhaps no individual of prom- 
inence in Portsmouth has passed away during 
the last forty years, that Mr. Hackett has not 
sketched the events of his life, and presented 
a kindly but just estimate of his character. To 
mark through a long stretch of years the growth 
and development of character, and to keep vivid 
in memory a record of his contemporaries, was a 
habit in the indulgence of which he found pecul- 
iar pleasure. The last personal friend for whom 
he performed the sad office of a parting tribute 
was Charles B. Goodrich, of Boston, formerly of 
Portsmouth. They were about the same age, 
had practised law together under similar circum- 
stances ; and Mr. Goodrich's death, which he 
keenly felt, preceded his own by a little more 
than two months. 

To assign a date to Mr. Hackett's entry into 
the field of politics is to go back almost to the 
beginning of his law practice. In no State of 
the Union have the people engaged in fiercer 
political struggles year after year than in New 
Hampshire. The election for State officers is 
now held biennially in November; but previous 
to 1878 (when the change took effect under an 



44 Memoir. 

amendment to the constitution) every March wit- 
nessed the culmination of a lonof and excitino- 
campaign, to whose resuk at the polls — since it 
was the first verdict pronounced by the people 
upon the winter session of Congress — there was 
attached a national significance. It is not strange 
that the lawyers, almost to a man, were drawn 
into the contest as leaders of their respective par- 
ties ; and Mr. Hackett proved no exception to 
the rule. From 1828, when he enlisted in the 
young men's movement to support John Ouincy 
Adams, down to the last year of his life, his name 
was foremost at Portsmouth as a Whig, and after- 
wards as a Republican leader. He was an effi- 
cient stump-speaker ; and his party friends counted 
upon him in each recurring campaign to preside 
at meetings, or to make one or more political 
addresses in Portsmouth, or in the neighboring 
towns. He rarely (if ever) omitted to attend a 
caucus, and it is believed that there is no single 
instance of his having failed to deposit a vote 
upon the day of election. Any one at all familiar 
with the history of New Hampshire politics for 
the last fifty years will associate as party leaders 
in Rockingham County the names of Ichabod 
Goodwin and \V. H. Y. Hackett. Beginning in 
1852, when a change from town to city organiza- 
tion brought Governor Goodwin and himself into 
the same ward, these devoted friends, as regularly 
as the day of election came around, — State, Fed- 
eral, or Municipal, — went to the polls in company, 



Memoir. 45 

and deposited their votes. Thus for twenty-six 
years did they testify in what esteem they held 
the right of suffrage. 

The Whigs held their convention in 1838, to 
nominate a candidate for State senator for the 
Portsmouth district, at the little farming town of 
Hampton F'alls, upon the anniversary of the birth- 
dav of Washinorton, and made it the occasion of 
a laree and enthusiastic mass meetinor. After the 
convention had disposed of its business, a pro- 
cession formed, and moved with music to the 
meetine-house, where an oration was delivered 
by Mr. Hackett upon the political duties of the 
hour. Hampton Falls is proud of having been 
the birthplace and residence of Meshach Weare, 
chief justice of New Hampshire in 1777, the last 
president, and in 1784 her first governor under 
the constitution, " No eulogy," said the speaker, 
" can better describe the rare merits of Meshach 
Weare, or bestow^ upon them higher praise, than 
the simple statement, that, for nearly half a cen- 
tury, he was in all the offices of highest trust in 
the State ; that he resigned that of chief magis- 
trate, and that he died a poor man." Mr. Hack- 
ett addressed himself mainly to a survey of the 
personal qualities requisite to the proper dis- 
charge of public duties, — a line of thought where- 
in he displayed a clear conception of the theory 
of our republican form of government, and a 
familiarity with its practical workings. This ef- 
fort, which bore the marks of mature reflection, 



46 Memoir. 

added not a little to his reputation as a sound 
reasoner and an able and conservative political 
leader. 

The town of Portsmouth was a Democratic 
stronghold. The Whigs often complimented Mr. 
Hackett by supporting him for the Legislature, 
until at last, in 1850, they succeeded in electing 
him and Ichabod Goodwin as representatives. 
He was a member of the House also in 185 i and 
1852, as well as in 1857 and i860. After serving 
two terms in the Senate, he was returned to the 
lower branch in 1867, 1868, and 1869. When he 
first entered public life as a representative, impor- 
tant and growing railroad interests in the State 
specially demanded careful and far-sighted legis- 
lation ; and he was fitly assigned to the Commit- 
tee on Railroads, of which he afterwards rose to 
be chairman. Later he served in two Legisla- 
tures as chairman of the Judiciary, which practi- 
cally gave him the leadership of the House. 

In the public councils he inclined to conserva- 
tism. To an observer from without the State, the 
popular branch of the New Hampshire Legisla- 
ture has always appeared unduly large ; for, until 
a recent reduction of about seventy-five, it has, of 
late years, contained an average of three hundred 
and fifty members ; and one House actually had 
three hundred and ninety-nine sitting members. 
There were, on the other hand, but twelve sena- 
tors, now increased to twenty-four. While a high 
degree of intelligence and practical good sense is 



Memoir. 47 

sure to characterize each successive body of the 
representatives (some towns wisely sending for 
repeated terms their strongest and best trained 
men), still it cannot be disguised that a delibera- 
tive body so large as to be unwieldy incurs a con- 
stant risk of legislating crudely and indiscreetly. 
Amid so many, there exists little sense of personal 
responsibility, except that here and there a mem- 
ber feels called upon the more vigilantly to stand 
guard against the passage of bills imperfectly 
understood, and perhaps detrimental to the public 
interests. To such an individual this duty pre- 
sents itself more imperatively when he discovers 
that a Senate feeble in numbers cannot in some 
emergencies be relied upon to withstand what 
is apt to be interpreted as the popular vote of the 
House. Here Mr. Hackett rendered the State a 
signal service. He sat near the speaker ; and no 
member was more constant or punctual in attend- 
ance. So lonof as the current of business was 
taking the right direction, he had no desire of 
appearing to control it : at those critical mo- 
ments only when a salutary measure seemed 
likely to fail, or a mischievous one to be passed, 
did he feel it his duty to interpose. He perfectly 
understood the temper of the House; was brief, 
plain, and direct of speech; and he rarely failed 
to carry his point. As a law-maker he was not 
conservative enough to refuse to venture into 
new or untried paths ; for he hastened to advo- 
cate measures that marked real progress in public 



48 Memoir. 

opinion ; but empirical legislation went elsewhere 
for a friend. In fullest sympathy with the habits 
and modes of thought of New Hampshire peo- 
ple, he determined instinctively what was best 
suited to their wants as well as to their tastes. 
Nor did he neglect to consult their material pros- 
perity. As an instance of his forethought, it de- ' 
serves to be recorded that he it was who first 
urged upon public attention the importance of 
securing a complete survey of the undeveloped 
water-power of the State : he was also the author 
of the measure, approved in 1868, exempting 
from taxation for the term of ten years the capital 
of any railroad thereafter constructed in New 
Hampshire. 

In 1861 he was chosen to the Senate by a hand- 
some majority. Of the labors imposed upon the 
legislative branch of the government by the fast 
multiplying necessities of war, he met and per- 
formed his full share. Whole-souled in his devo- 
tion to the cause of the Union, he was foremost 
in upholding the vigorous action of the Execu- 
tive. When a bill to aid in the defence of the 
country by raising troops came under discussion 
in July, and a Democratic senator had, in a long 
and elaborate speech, denounced the measure 
as unconstitutional, Mr. Hackett uttered the sen- 
timents of a vast majority of the people of 
New Hampshire without distinction of party, in 
a vehement and logical reply. The following 
language appears prophetic, read as it now is in 
the light of history : — 



Memoir. 49 

"This rebellion is to be crushed, and the Union preserved. 
The senator is probably correct in believing that the govern- 
ment will be stronger after it has subdued the rebellion than 
ever before. Every true man must wish it to be strong enough 
to be able to fulfil its duties. Terrible as this crisis is, it was 
as inevitable as the American Revolution, and will in its results 
be as full of blessings. In the end, the rebels will find their 
level, and the loyal men will enjoy a lasting peace under a gov- 
ernment of their own making." 

Throughout the struggle Mr. Hackett was far 
more sanguine than his friends of our ultimate 
success. In his unwavering support of the gov- 
ernment he did not content himself simply with 
assuming his proper share of the public burden. 
" Let each of us," were his stirrinof words at a 
great war meeting, " perform the first duty he 
meets. Do something for your country, and you 
will love it the better for what it may cost you." 
Suffice it to say that he met manfully the sacri- 
fices which those of advanced )ears were called 
upon to sustain. 

Re-elected in 1862, he was chosen president of 
the Senate. The session was busy and pro- 
tracted, for serious work had to be done. " We 
cannot forget," said he upon taking the chair, " I 
am sure we shall not neglect, the duty which in 
this crisis of our country we owe to our National 
Government, whose power we have felt only in 
the blessinofs it has conferred." Mr. Hackett dis- 
plaved a rare capacity for presiding over delib- 
erative bodies ; he not only readily despatched 
business, but brought to the chair a suavity and 



50 Memoir. 

dignity that were at once agreeable and impres- 
sive. When the customary resokitions of thanks 
were offered at the close of the session, it was ap- 
parent, from the remarks that accompanied them, 
that his brother senators meant something beyond 
what formal ceremony dictated. He responded 
in the following language of genuine feeling : — 

Senators, — I offer you my grateful thanks for this proof 
that you have appreciated my efforts to justify your partiaHty in 
placing me in this position. The commendations which sena- 
tors have been pleased to bestow upon my attempts to fulfil my 
duties are to me as agreeable as they were unexpected. They 
have taken me so entirely by surprise, that I am unprepared, in 
language suited either to the occasion or to my own feelings, to 
express the emotions they have excited. I shall carry from this 
chamber recollections, never to be effaced, of the kindness 
and courtesy which through the whole session each senator 
has extended to me. 

I have been a gratified witness of the assiduity and ability 
with which you and each of you have performed the honorable 
trust which has been confided to you. Your deliberations have 
been as harmonious as those of honest and independent men 
ought to be, and you have faithfully done what was needful to 
guard the rights, and equalize the burdens, of a frugal people. 

I had looked forward to this session with solicitude. The 
defence of the institutions of our country had occasioned, and 
was occasioning, the sacrifice of precious lives, and was impos- 
ing burdens upon a population unaccustomed to heavy taxa- 
tion. My solicitude was for the sacrifice and not for the result. 
He who reflects that the theatre of this struggle is the North 
American Continent and the question involved is. What prin- 
ciples shall shape its destiny? cannot long doubt what will be 
the issue. This result is prefigured by the significant fact that, 
when officers who had been elevated to positions of privi- 
lege and power betrayed and attempted to overthrow that 



Memoir. 5 1 

country which had honored and trusted them, no sailor or sol- 
dier was found to desert his flag. New Hampshire has done, 
and will continue to do, her full share in putting down this 
rebellion against the principles which peopled and prospered 
this country, — a rebellion which is favored at home and abroad 
only by those who claim more, or are content with less, than a 
government of equal laws ought to confer. 

I cannot find words with which to thank you for your kind- 
ness ; but at this moment of our parting allow me to express 
the earnest hope, that, upon reaching your homes, you may find 
those who will welcome your coming in the enjoyment of 
health and happiness. 

The name of William H. Y. Hackett as a can- 
didate for elector headed the Whig ticket for 
president in 1852 ; likewise the Republican ticket 
in 1864, when he cast an electoral vote for the 
re-election of Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Hackett was a 
delegate to the Republican national convention 
at Philadelphia, in 1872, that re-nominated Presi- 
dent Grant, and was vice-president of the con- 
vention from New Hampshire. In his capacity 
as one of the oldest delegates present, Mr. Hack- 
ett called to order the convention that met at 
Concord in December, 1876, to revise the State 
constitution, and was made temporary chairman. 
Most unexpectedly to himself, upon an informal 
ballot for president, he receiv^ed no fewer than 
one hundred and twelve votes : had he been 
honored with an election to that office, the com- 
pliment could hardly have proved more gratify- 
ing. The convention proposed no radical changes. 
Though attentive to the proceedings, Mr. Hack- 



5 2 Memoir. 

ett did not take conspicuous part in the debates ; 
but his counsel was freely sought by his fellow- 
delegates, who yielded to his judgment and expe- 
rience the tribute of their unfeigned respect. 

One feature that heretofore has distinguished 
the career of lawyers in a new and growing 
country like ours, from that of their brethren 
across the water, is the readiness with which they 
have applied themselves to the encouragement 
and advocacy of large business enterprises that 
promise to develop the resources of the commu- 
nity where they are undertaken, Mr. Hackett 
was a man of sound and sagacious business 
views ; and he did not hesitate to identify him- 
self with every well-conceived project of a public 
character that gave reasonable assurance of fu- 
ture advantage to the citizens of Portsmouth. 
He had much to do with the opening of railroad 
communication with Boston in 1841, and there- 
after was for a long series of years a director of 
the Eastern Railroad in New Hampshire, as well 
as the legal counsel of that corporation. With 
some modification, the same may be said of his 
relations to the Portland, Saco, and Portsmouth 
Railroad.' 

He foresaw the importance of building a line 

I At the annual meeting, June 2, 1879, the directors said, in their re- 
port to the stockholders, " We miss from our annual gathering to-day one 
who has been identified with the interests of the Portland, Saco, and Ports- 
mouth Railroad from its earliest days, and to whose wise counsels and 
faithful services we are largely indebted for the present value and good 
condition of the property. Your directors think it only fitting that they 



Memoir. 53 

of railroad from the seaboard to the White Moun- 
tain region ; was one of the projectors of the 
Portsmouth, Great Falls, and Conway Railroad ; 
and a corporator mentioned in the charter which 
he was instrumental in obtaining. He was a 
director, and subsequently president, of this rail- 
road. Mention need not be made here of sev- 
eral other corporations with which he was con- 
nected, further than to specify two, not however 
of a business character. At his decease he held 
the office of president of the South Parish Sun- 
day School Association ; and was trustee, as well 
as treasurer, of the Rice Public Library of Kittery, 
in Maine, just across the Piscataqua from Ports- 
mouth. 

In recognition of his attainments at the bar, 
and his literary tastes, Dartmouth College, in 
1858, conferred upon him the degree of Master 
of Arts. The following year he declined an ap- 
pointment to the bench of the .Supreme Judicial 
Court, convinced that he ought not to surrender 
his practice for the salary of a justice, notwith- 
standing that the bar and his friends generally 
agreed that the honor had properly sought him. 
Among the kind commendations of the press 
which the situation evoked, an article in " The 
Democratic Standard," a strong partisan organ, 

sliould record the name of the Honoral)lc William TI. Y. Hackett as one 
whose memory should be honored by us for his faithful and efficient ser- 
vices on the board, no less than it has been by his fellow-citizens of the 
State of New Hampshire, as one of her noblest sons and most distin- 
guished counsellors." 



54 Memoir. 

published at Concord, became the subject of the 
following incident One afternoon, as Mr. Hack- 
ett came into the Athenaeum, Judge Odell play- 
fully congratulated him upon his appointment to 
the vacant judgeship. He replied that it was the 
first he had heard of it, when the judge, taking 
up "The Standard," read aloud the complimen- 
tary reference to Mr. Hackett in connection with 
the office. 

Mr. Hackett. — This is only a newspaper nom- 
ination. 

yudge Odell. — True ; but you can take no 
exception to the terms in which it is made. 

Mr. Hackett. — Precisely : there's nothing in it 
upon which I can go to the Supreme Court. 

No one essayed more zealously than he to 
foster at the bar a sentiment of brotherhood. 
The New Hampshire Bar Association, incorpo- 
rated in 1873, chose him their first president, — 
an office vacated by his death. In 1876, at his 
suggestion, the association appointed a commit- 
tee of one member from each county (of which 
he was made chairman) , to collect materials for 
sketches of members of the New Hampshire 
bar from the earliest dates. His death, it is to 
be feared, closes the only source from which 
much of this valuable information could have 
been derived. 

On the evening of the twenty-first of Decem- 
ber, 1876, Mr. and Mrs. Hackett celebrated in a 
quiet but hospitable manner the fiftieth anni- 



Memoir. 



^D 



versary of their wedding-day. Friends brought 
sincere congratulations, and it was a subject of 
universal remark that the bride and groom of 
the golden wedding looked as if they had but 
just reached the prime of life. A physician, who 
enjoyed the reputation of having laid up a hand- 
some competence, rallied the happy couple on 
their showing no signs of age. " Pray tell us, Mr. 
Hackett," said he, " how you two manage to keep 
so young." — " Pretty much as you've managed to 
be well off," was the ready reply: "the fact is, 
Mrs. Hackett and myself have kept about as clear 
of the doctors as you have of the lawyers." 

His interest in the welfare of Portsmouth by 
no means confined itself to her material pros- 
perity ; but every sensibly conceived project — 
whether a reading-room to interest those who 
otherwise would idle away their evenings at the 
street corner, or some plan of embellishing the 
town, and making it more attractive to stran- 
gers, or the celebration of a holiday — was sure 
to receive the sanction of his hearty support. It 
was natural, therefore, that at public meetings 
his townsmen generally looked to him to preside. 
He w^as fond of the drama, and believed a judi- 
ciously managed theatre to be a blessing to the 
community. The chief local event of the winter 
preceding his death was the opening of a hand- 
some and well-appointed Music Hall, designed 
for theatrical and other entertainments ; and he 
took pleasure in pronouncing a brief address at 



56 Memoir. 

its dedication. The following extract exemplifies 
at once the liberality and kindliness of his senti- 
ments : — 

"This building is a credit as well as a convenience to our 
city. A community is known, to some extent, by the character 
and place of its amusements. This hall will exert a refining 
influence upon those who occupy it. It will serv^e, to some 
extent, as the place of our social re-unions ; for we cannot 
come together in a well-arranged and well-ordered place of 
amusement, without quickening our interest, and deepening our 
sympathy with each other ; we cannot in company and sym- 
pathy enjoy music and the drama, — those recreations which 
enliven, sweeten, and lengthen life, — without increasing our 
interest in and our respect for each other." 

Of the subject of this memoir it may not be 
said that he ever formally retired from active 
practice : few lawyers do, who have grown gray 
in the profession, preserving their health and 
vigor unimpaired. He found happiness in the 
daily service of his clients ; yet, not unmindful of 
the impatience with which juniors of the profes- 
sion are wont to regard the old and successful 
leader who will not loose his hold upon practice, 
he sought at the proper time to convert a contin- 
uance at the bar into the source rather of quiet 
enjoyment than of extended labor or of special 
profit. One or two important suits engaged his 
attention, in which he could hardly avoid being 
of counsel ; and consultations for advice were 
not infrequent ; but the burden and heat of the 
day were over. He had outlived nearly every 



Memoir. 57 

associate at the bar of his young-er days, and was 
now called to mourn the loss of his friend Daniel 
M. Christie of Dover, his senior by a few years, — 
a lawyer of rugged force and marvellous industry. 
In January, 1877, he writes: " I do not intend to 
try any more jury cases. I have just come from 
the court-house, where"! made a speech upon the 
death of Mr. Christie, and was followed by Mr. 
Hatch. The chief justice replied," 

Latterly the bank had occupied much of his 
thoughts, and he experienced an increased meas- 
ure of satisfaction in the success that had attend- 
ed its management. He had lived long enough 
also to witness gratifying signs of the healthful 
growth of the new savings bank, the plan of 
whose organization was mainly his, and whose 
line of policy he had carefully marked out. Of 
dishonesty in places of trust he writes (April, 
1878): "Another defalcation. ... It looks as if 
a certain percentage of men could not come in 
contact with, and have under their control, the 
money of other people, without stealing it. It 
is with reo-ard to stealinof as with all wrongf ; it 
beofins with little irresfularities, and ends in dis- 
traction. I always take off my hat to a man who 
prefers to wear an old coat rather than be in 
debt." 

These latter days were cloudless and serene: 
indeed, it had been ordained that, to the close of 
a lone life, the trials and afflictions which it is 
the common lot of man to encounter should visit 



58 Memoir. 

him in their gentlest form. * In the language of 
Izaak Walton : " His aspect was cheerful, and 
such as gave a silent testimony of a clear, know- 
ing soul, and of a conscience at peace with itself." 
Possessed of a good estate, the fruit of diligence 
and reasonable self-denial, Mr. Hackett was to all 
appearance free from the burdens of age. Peace 
and contentment sat at his fireside. Though 
almost every associate of his early manhood had 
passed away, the circle of his immediate family 
remained unbroken, and his declining years 
lacked nought of " honor, love, obedience, troops 
of friends." No one thought to speak of him as 
old. His complexion was clear, inclining to 
florid ; his hair (which was of remarkable fine- 
ness) had scarcely begun to take on a faint tinge 
of gray ; his carriage was erect, step elastic ; his 
eye not dim, nor was his natural force abated. 

Excellent as was his general health, Mr. Hack- 
ett from the age of thirty-one had been an acute 
sufferer from the " hay fever," whose annual re- 
currence he looked for about the twenty-third of 
August, and which disappeared only at the coming 
of the first black frost. So inflexible, however, was 
his attachment to home, that he chose year after 
year to endure this distressing complaint rather 
than obtain relief by living for the season at the 
White Mountains, distant a brief journey from 
Portsmouth.' In the summer of 1877, upon re- 

^ Mr. Hackett furnished Dr. Morrill Wyman, of Cambridge, with 
valuable material of which that distinguished physician availed himself 



Memoir. 59 

covering from a mild attack of gastric fever, he 
yielded to his physician's advice, and betook him- 
self, at the first approach of the enemy, to Beth- 
lehem, New Hampshire, where he sojourned in 
perfect security in the company of agreeable peo- 
ple, many of them exiled like himself not unpleas- 
antly from home. 

Change of air and scene, besides warding off 
the annual malady referred to, seemed at first to 
have imparted vigor ; but before the winter closed 
there were ominous siofns of failing strenofth. He 
said nothing of his condition, however, and kept 
up his daily occupation as usual, at the office and 
the bank. It now appears that there must have 
existed some organic affection of the heart. On 
the evening of Sunda)', the seventh of July, he 
felt severe pains ; the ensuing Wednesday a chill 
prostrated him, that might have proved fatal but 
for timely and skilful medical aid. Upon the 
return of consciousness the patient was most 
alarmingly weak. Day after day, with wonderful 
persistence, nature held out against the inroad 
made by this attack ; and his physicians, upon 
consultation, expressed strong hopes of a final 
recovery. But at last it became evident that the 
system could no longer take nourishment. 

On the morning of the ninth of August a change 
for the worse took place, and by noon he had 
begun to sink rapidly. He perfectly realized that 

in the preparation of a monograpli on autumnal catarrh (hay fever), pub- 
lished in 1S72, — a work that at once took rank as of the highest authority. 



6o Memoir. 

the end was drawlnor near, and said, in a voice 
feeble but tranquil, " I had thought perhaps I 
might be spared a little longer." Already he had 
given a few directions, and now asked that each 
member of his family should come to his bedside. 
Peacefully he bade farewell to each in turn, coun- 
selling his children to live together in harmony. 
Upon his only grandson, Wallace, he bestowed 
the parting injunction : " Do no discredit to the 
name." As life ebbed slowly away, he whispered 
something so faintly that all that mortal ear could 
catch was the word "quiet; " then laying his head 
over upon his hand, as a little child would fall 
asleep, — he passed from earth to heaven. 

The funeral from the church of the South 
(Unitarian) Parish was impressive, but, as he 
could have wished it, simple. The pall-bearers 
were Ichabod Goodwin, John Stavers, William L. 
Dwight, and Edward P. Kimball. He sleeps in 
the beautiful South Cemetery, where, upon a gen- 
tle eminence that commands a view of the noble 
river and of the ocean beyond, a plain stone bears 
an inscription only of his name and the date of 
his birth and death. 

A PREDOMINANT feature of the life whose out- 
lines have been thus imperfectly sketched is its 
uniform success. By this it is not meant alone 
that in a worldly point of view Mr. Hackett 
steadily prospered, but that he w^as successful in 
the larger and higher sense of having employed 



Memoir. 6i 

to their best advantaofe the talents intrusted to 
his keeping. He seems early to have learned the 
lesson, that to be happy one must make himself 
useful; and that he is most useful who most faith- 
fully adheres to settled rules of conduct based 
upon a due appreciation of his powers. W'ith 
him the duties of life were indeed more than life. 

His aims were high ; yet he was no visionary. 
Warm and impulsive as were his affections, it is 
surprising to note under what steady control he 
kept his judgment. Thus striving to compass 
nothing that lay beyond the reach of his best 
endeavor, he avoided those failures that form so 
melancholy a chapter in most men's lives, and, 
with scarce an interruption, enjoyed that favor of 
fortune called by the world good luck, but which 
is after all little else than the almost sure reward 
of self-denial and patient industry. Success was 
no doubt due in the main to qualities developed 
by the severe yet invigorating discipline of early 
privation ; and it is to be hoped that these condi- 
tions of robust manhood, happily prevalent in the 
country life of New England half a century or 
more ago, will not wholly have disappeared in 
the radical changes that have of late aftected 
her population. 

Though it was by his own unaided exertions 
that the subject of this memoir achieved position 
and influence, his bearing towards others was tree 
from a certain pride of opinion and that air of 
intolerance not unfrequenth' observable in what 



62 Memoir. 

are termed self-made men. For himself, he soug-ht 
content in the regular employment of his facul- 
ties ; if he ever betrayed impatience with the 
method of living that another had adopted, it was 
with that of the professed idler. Yet he knew the 
world too well to commit the error of accounting- 
the actively industrious as alone useful : believing 
that he who has 

" A mind 
That hungers and suppHes it, and who seeks 
A social, not a dissipated life. 
Has business," 

he welcomed with a fine sense of their actual 
value the presence of gentlemen of leisure. 

He was engaged, as we have seen, in the active 
practice of law for more than fifty-two years, — a 
term longer than that of any predecessor at the 
Rockingham bar. Loyal to his profession, it 
greatly pleased him that both his sons had freely 
chosen to adopt it as their own, as well as that 
his lengthening days permitted him to see an 
only grandson advanced in his studies at the Law 
School in Cambridge. It is just, therefore, that 
an estimate of his character should be made to 
rest chiefly upon his rank and attainments as a 
lawyer. 

About the time of his coming forward in the 
profession, the "case lawyer" was disappearing; 
for, so long as the reports continued to aggregate 
few in number, it had not unreasonably been 
expected of the well-equipped practitioner that 



Memoir. 63 

he had famiharized himself with all the leading 
decisions, so as readily to cite each case from 
memory. Though Mr. Hackett could rely to an 
extraordinary degree upon his memory, he had 
early schooled himself to retain a legal principle 
as distinct from and without much regard to the 
case in which the court had laid it down. The 
law libraries of his student days were small in 
extent, and scanty facilities were granted to pur- 
sue a subject far in any one direction : at a later 
period, Mr. Hackett showed little disposition to 
surround himself with many legal treatises, or to 
keep abreast of the reports. Yet he was by no 
means neglectful of his readinor. It is true he did 
not encumber his memory with a mass of undi- 
gested law : at the same time, no well-considered 
case precisely in point was likely to be omitted 
from his brief. While he may not be styled a 
learned lawyer, he was firmly grounded in tlie 
common law, comprehended aKva)'s " the reason 
of the rule," retained a correct knowledge of de- 
cided points, and was quick to apply legal princi- 
ples to a new condition of things. With him law 
was eminently a practical science ; for he studied, 
alone with the rulines of the courts, human na- 
ture and the ever-varying relations of society. 
The regions he explored were those likely to be 
travelled in the ordinary course of business, and 
he seldom deviated into those researches which 
chiefly attract the curious and the speculative. 
He pursued a legal doctrine to its results as 



64 Memoir. 

tested by the experience of every-day life, and 
so was forward to discover defects and the need 
of legal reform. The old common law system of 
pleading and practice still exists in New Hamp- 
shire, but it never made Mr. Hackett technical : 
on the contrary, his preferences leaned to equity 
jurisprudence, and he labored long and studiously 
in the ranks of those (and they were few) who 
succeeded at last in bringing chancery practice 
into favor at the bar of a State jealous of innova- 
tion. As Choate once felicitously said of equity, 
in commenting upon a similar trait in a brother 
lawyer : " To such a mind, and such tastes as 
his, its comparative freedom from technicalities, 
its regulated discretion, and its efforts to accom- 
plish exact justice and effectual relief, possessed 
a charm, and had a value, far beyond that of the 
more artificial science, whose incompleteness and 
rigidity it supplies and ameliorates." 

Though he reached a conclusion by rapid pro- 
cesses, he never decided in haste, or upon 
impulse. It was his wont to turn a question 
over In his mind before looking at the books, 
and he often felt instinctively what at least the 
law ought to be. This habit of reasoning for 
himself before calling in the aid of the later 
authorities intensified his tenacity of opinion to 
a degree, that in more than one instance the 
views of the court unanimously expressed failed 
to shake his conviction. It once happened, where 
a decision surprised and greatly disappointed him. 



Memoir. 65 

that the case did not appear in the next volume 
of reports, nor was it ever reported. One day 
rallying the chief justice, who had pronounced 
the opinion, Mr. Hackett expressed his readiness 
to make a bargain with the court, — the reporter 
should print his argument side by side with their 
opinion, and he would be more than content. 

The earliest reported cause in which he appears 
of counsel was determined in 1827;' and from 
that time till his death (at which date the court 
were holding one of his cases under advisement), 
the fifty-three volumes of the New Hampshire 
Reports, together with the decisions of the Circuit 
and the Supreme Court of the United States, 
testify with what ability and with what fair meas- 
ure of success he addressed the bench. As a 
speaker to the court Mr. Hackett was clear, logi- 
cal, and earnest ; he possessed to a good degree 
that first requisite of success at the bar, — the 
power of statement ; he arranged his argument 
methodically, concentrating his efforts upon the 
few important points in controversy, and rea- 
soned closely with some fertility of illustration, 
but withoift the least display of learning. He 
was dignified and sober in address ; yet a strong 
sense of humor would not infrequently assert 
itself in the line both of his spoken and written 
argument, as witness these closing remarks in 
behalf of the defendants, in an important railroad 
suit : — 

^ Odioine vs. Seave)', 4 New Ilampshiie Reports, 53. 



66 Memoir. 

" With one-twentieth of one side and no part of the 
other side properly before it ; with the alleged official delin- 
quents, the funds and corporate organization, which are the 
real subjects of controversy, and the instruments by and 
through which redress is to be afforded, out of their territorial 
jurisdiction, — this court is expected to afford a remedy, not 
against either persons or property in this State, but by one 
comprehensive decree consequent upon a full examination of 
the whole matter, to adjust all the disputes and differences now 
pending between the Eastern Railroad in New Hampshire and 
the Eastern Railroad in Massachusetts, and such disputes as 
these complainants by their bill have put in issue. Great as 
will be the labor of the court if it shall attemj^t to perform this 
complicated duty, it will be less than that of the counsel who 
undertake to find the authorities which impose it." ^ 

Immediately upon coming to the bar he gained 
reputation as a jury lawyer. Quick to accommo- 
date himself to the shifting phases of a trial, fair 
yet firm in his treatment of witnesses, animated 
and persuasive in argument, and prompt to aid 
the court by a lucid exposition of what he con- 
ceived to be the law, there were few counsel at 
any bar to whom a client could intrust his rights 
with a better assured sense of complete protection. 
He identified himself with his client to the extent 
of manifesting a warm personal interest in the 
struggle. By no means litigious, he seldom came 
to trial until after he had exhausted all reasonable 
means of settlement ; but the contest once begun, 
he fought as if inspired with the sentiment, not 



^ March vs. Eastern Railroad ComiJany, 40 New Hamjishiie Re- 
ports, 563. 



Memoir. 67 

only that he was right, but that his opponents 
were unutterably and hopelessly wrong. In ad- 
dressing the jury he was neither colloquial nor 
declamatory, but fluent, earnest, and self-pos- 
sessed ; sometimes indeed a nervous tremor just 
perceptible served rather to fix the attention of 
the hearer than to distract it : late in life he con- 
fessed that he had never gone into a jury trial 
without dreading it. Rarely, if at all, did he refer 
to the copious notes taken of the testimony ; but 
he marshalled the facts from memory, pressing 
with great force upon the jury every circumstance 
that could possibly tell in favor of his client. Nor 
did he proceed far before showing how unre- 
servedly were his feelings enlisted ; for dissimu- 
lation or sophistry was utterly foreign to his 
nature. He may have lacked some of the arts 
and graces of the forensic orator ; the " marrow 
of persuasion " may not always have been at his 
command : but for skill in adapting language to 
the intellio^ence of the twelve men before him, 
for the determined vigor that drove home and 
clinched his arofument. and for the tone of can- 
dor that marked every utterance, Mr. Hackett 
deserves to be remembered as an advocate who 
upon occasion rose to the height of true elo- 
quence. The progress of the trial was almost 
sure to be enlivened by some flash of wit from 
him, especially if provoked by an attack from the 
other side. These happy repartees for the most 
part exist now only in tradition. The following 



68 Memoir. 

anecdotes, however, show that his zest for fun 
was that of a true lawyer : — 

Upon opening a case brought in behalf of 
a landlord against a delinquent tenant named 
Parent, Mr. Hackett remarked gravely that his 
client had reached the conclusion that it was high 
time for the defendant to change his name or his 
habits ; and, inasmuch as he saw little prospect of 
his doing either, nothing had been left but to 
begin a suit. 

In the examination of a witness he was sud- 
denly checked by the opposing counsel, who, 
stating his objection to the interrogatory, varied 
slightly its phraseology ; whereupon Mr. Hackett 
exclaimed, with a significant glance at the jury : 
" Oh, no ! I wouldn't hazard the verdict I expect 
these gentlemen to give me — by asking tJiat 
question." 

A brother lawyer having occasion to allude to 
the rather sudden disappearance of a witness who 
had been the captain of a merchant-vessel, re- 
marked that he had " gone off in a tangent." 
Mr. Hackett {sot to voce): "Took a sea cant, I 
presume." 

He was once trying a case before a judge who 
from time to time durinof the argument to the 
jury kept tipping back his chair at various angles 
in an attempt to find a more comfortable position. 
The experiments finally culminated in so extraor- 
dinary an attitude, that the seat of justice shot 
over backwards, and his Honor of a sudden dis- 



Memoir. 69 

appeared. Luckily no harm resulted, though it 
required some minutes for the bar and others 
present to recover that gravity of demeanor which 
the judicial presence, rectus in curia, is calculated 
to inspire. Mr. Hackett, before resuming his 
address to the jury, politely bowed to the resusci- 
tated justice, and said, " If your Honor please, 
fortunately for my client it appears that it is not 
his counsel's argument, but the court, that has 
broken down." 

An unusually full bar were awaiting the ter- 
mination of a trial that had been tediously pro- 
longed. Mr. Hackett, to while away the time, 
took a sheet of paper, and scribbled the following 
lines, which approvingly went the rounds : — 

" James Bell talked a spell ; 
Ditto — Daniel Christie ; 
Joel Parker's getting darker, — 
And Woods' growing misty." ^ 

He could not wholly avoid criminal practice, 

' Another bit of verse-making, though not of a legal character, is 
worth appending here. A citizen, who in some circles was no great 
favorite, had married a Miss Mann, and some years afterward, upon her 
death, took a second wife of the name of Moore. Just after each mar- 
riage respectively, Mr. Hackett wrote a verse as follows : — 

I. 
Poor A-B-C — the women hated 

(Or so the scandal ran:) 
With them he never could have mated, 

And so he took a Man(n). 

II. 
The Man(n) at length departed. 

And left him sad and sore — 
Alone and broken-heart::d. 

Until he tojk one Mo(u)re. 



yo Memoir. 

though it was not at all to his taste. He was 
once employed to defend a sailor who, after gen- 
erously patronizing the bar of a certain drinking- 
saloon, had taken occasion to quarrel with the 
proprietor, borrowing a bottle from the counter 
wherewith to carry on the fray. The latter was 
severely punished, and came into court with his 
head bruised in a style somewhat approximating 
to that picture of ruin required to be set forth in 
a common law indictment for assault and battery. 
All that counsel could hope to do was to secure, 
under a plea of guilty, as light a sentence as 
possible ; and Mr. Hackett urged in his behalf 
that the prisoner had acted under the influence 
of liquor, — and poor liquor at that. " But, sir," 
said the Court, inclining to look upon this plea 
with little favor, " we are to consider the aggra- 
vated character of the offence. Your client admits 
he assaulted this man with a bottle." — "Yes, 
your Honor," quickly interposed the counsel, 
" we admit all that ; but I beg you to remember 
that this man first assaulted my client with its 
contents." The Court conceded the point to be 
well taken, and Jack got the benefit of it in miti- 
gation. 

An honest old farmer, who had sat on the jury 
that brought in a verdict in favor of one of Mr. 
Hackett's clients, fell to talking, a year or two 
afterward, with Mr. Hackett, evidently thinking it 
necessary to proffer a word of explanation. " The 
fact is, squire," said he, " we shouldn't ha' been 



Memoir. 7 1 

so long a-givin' of you that case, but somehow or 
other there happened to be a couple of men on 
there who didn't know you at all : well, the rest 
of us, we just told 'em what kind of a man we 
knowed Squire Hackett to be ; and we kind o' 
insisted upon it that we could depend 'xactly on 
what you said ; — and so after that, you see, we 
all come round together." 

He had no professional jealousy, but wished 
well of all his brethren. A most engaging trait 
of Mr. Hackett's character was his deep-seated 
affection and frankness ; it was simply impos- 
sible for him to be thrown into daily contact with 
his associates at the bar, without becoming firmly 
attached to all who were worthy of his friendly 
adherence. As he came into court in the morn- 
ing with the green bag that lawyers are accus- 
tomed to carry, no shake of the hand was more 
hearty or salutation more cordial than his. To 
the younger members of the bar he was kind 
and considerate, and some of his warmest friends 
became such in that relation. Perhaps no better 
illustration of this fact can be adduced than the 
following extract (which presents to some extent 
an epitome of his character as a practitioner) 
from a letter recently written by one of his former 
students, now a highly successful lawyer of Bos- 
ton, — Stillman B. Allen, Esq.: — 

" I was a student in Mr. Hackett's office for nearly two years, 
and I remember him as a faithful instructor, and from that time 
until his death as an honored and dear friend. 



72 Memoir. 

" He was a student all his life. He did not base his opinions 
or arguments simply upon the decisions of other men, but went 
deeper, and read the reports of home and foreign courts, with a 
view to learn the meaning and reasons for the decisions made ; 
and from these he thought out and framed his own belief and 
arguments. He refused to try causes in the justice of which he 
did not personally believe, and though sometimes misled, or 
mistaken in the facts, his causes were always presented with an 
honesty of purpose and a confidence which won the attention 
and respect of the courts and judges before whom he appeared. 

" Although an untiring worker, and more successful pecun- 
iarily than any of his associates at the bar, he did not look 
upon his profession simply as a means of earning money, but 
as his place for doing good in the world. He always discour- 
aged litigation, in many instances brought angry and contending 
parties to a settlement of their difficulties, and was the means 
of renewing many broken friendships. 

" He was largely impressed with the equity and justice of 
matters intrusted to him, and I cannot remember an instance 
where he undertook to enforce or defend a case because it 
could be legally done, unless he also believed it to be just and 
right. Of course, he lost some clients by undertaking to de- 
cide the justice of their claims in advance of the courts ; but 
his known integrity brought him many more. When he imder- 
took a suit, his chent knew that he believed it to be just, and 
went hopefully into the contest. 

" He believed in men, and, while not easily or often deceived, 
he trusted them. His cross-examination of witnesses was never 
made with the view to confuse an honest man, but only to bring 
the truth fully to light. He was at all times courteous to younger 
members of the profession, and never took advantage of their 
want of knowledge of the rules of practice, but was ready to 
help them over such difficulties, and to try their cases on their 
merits." . . . 



Memoir. 73 

Says a gentleman who once practised law by his 
side : — 

" A noble trait in his character was his freedom from the 
spirit that prompts, and his abstinence from the practice of, 
detraction. I saw him daily for several years, and frequently in 
later years, and not seldom was I admitted to what may be re- 
garded as the confidences of unrestrained intercourse ; but at 
no time did I ever hear from him any thing that savored of per- 
sonal criticism of any individual in Portsmouth or elsewhere, in 
regard to private character. Public men, or the acts of public 
men, he commended or condemned when he thought the occa- 
sion demanded ; but I do not remember to have heard him 
impugn the motives of any public man or of any private man 
or woman. When he could not approve, he was silent. Of 
course, to this must be excepted such occasions in the dis- 
charge of his professional duties as required him to call atten- 
tion to facts sworn to in court, or te just inferences from such 
testimony." 

Upon the whole, it may be emphatically said of 
Mr. Hackett, that he attained that full measure 
of usefulness in his day and generation which is 
vouchsafed to the able and upright lawyer. For 
more than half a century, with singleness of pur- 
pose, he served his fellow-townsmen as counsel- 
lor, advocate, and friend, living a life " adorned by 
consistent principles, and filled up in the dis- 
charge of virtuous duty." 

To banking Mr. Hackett had given his best 
thought ; and the uniform prosperity of the corpo- 
rations under his charge attests the soundness of 
his judgment upon financial subjects. Thrown at 
an early age upon his own resources for a liveli- 
hood, he recognized the paramount duty of laying 



74 Memoir. 

betimes the foundation of at least a moderate for- 
tune. He made no haste to be rich, and studi- 
ously avoided every form of speculation ; for he 
set a higher value upon the discipline that insures 
the slow but steady accumulation of wealth than 
upon the possession of wealth itself. He saw 
that as a general rule they are of little use or 
influence in a community, who arrive at middle 
age untrained in habits of prudence and self- 
denial, — habits needful equally to build up a for- 
tune, or to take care of it, whether earned or 
inherited. He used to say that it was the duty 
of a lawyer to live frugally, and by making none 
but legitimate and safe investments, to keep his 
mind free from disquiet about money matters : 
thus only could his clients reap the benefit of 
what they had a right to expect, — the full vigor 
of his intellectual powers, fresh and elastic. 
Observation taught him likewise with what rap- 
idity and enormous power interest accumulates, 
— a lesson that, strange to say, few seem to learn. 
Little by little he came to understand the science 
of investing money, not only as a means of im- 
proving private fortune, but in its wider influence 
upon the community at large, and upon the na- 
tional credit He was consulted by many in vari- 
ous walks of life, seeking advice what to do with 
their savings, whom he encouraged by his kindly 
manner, and to whom he freely accorded the 
benefit of his long experience : indeed, he took 
special pains to induce working men and women 



Memoir. 75 

of slender means to lay by something as a deposit 
in the savings bank. It is safe to say that seldom 
has a single individual in any community done 
more by example, by private counsel, and by 
public lecture, to impress upon young people the 
principles of economy and of sober living. 

A word or two only as to Mr. Hackett's connec- 
tion with politics. That a gentleman of acknowl- 
edged ability, who for years acceptably served his 
party, and who, in both branches of the Legisla- 
ture, evinced such aptitude for the conduct of the 
public business, was not advanced to some post 
of yet higher distinction, may occasion surprise 
to those who did not know him well. In explana- 
tion it is to be remarked that, although public 
service was not distasteful to him, Mr. Hackett 
was far from being a politician. Political leader- 
ship, to be sure, was accorded him ; but a poli- 
tician in the sense of seeking to promote the 
interests of this or that set of men, least of all his 
own advancement, he never was. He detested 
selfishness in politics as much as anywhere else. 
Whatever may be thought in these later days of 
the rule that the office should seek the man, he 
acted upon it rigidly ; indeed, it is by no means 
certain that he did not err in being over modest. 
Upon more than one occasion, friends inspired 
with a purpose of bringing his name forward as a 
candidate for the chief magistracy, viewed regret- 
fully his determination to take no step whatever 
in furtherance of their efforts. And yet he was 



76 Memoir. 

well fitted to wear such honors : besides, a orow- 
ing public sentiment in that section of the State 
had associated his name with the office as the 
choice of the party. As for a seat in Congress, 
his love of home and of a quiet life, to say noth- 
ing of his reluctance to break up his law practice, 
set at rest ambition in that direction. To each 
public office that he filled it may be said that he 
had been literally called ; and he performed its 
duties free from a thought of making it the step- 
ping-stone to something beyond. At each post 
he was animated with the same sentiment that 
prompted him to consent, at an age well beyond 
the allotted threescore and ten, to serve for an 
annual term as an alderman of the city of Ports- 
mouth, — an office exacting in its requirements, 
and to which there was attached no compensa- 
tion, save the reflection that in assuming this 
burden he was rendering a service to his fellow- 
townsmen, which perhaps (such then was the 
peculiar posture of affairs) no other individual 
could so well have done. The record of his pub- 
lic life taken as a whole satisfied, we may be sure, 
his reasonable aspirations. In declining to enter 
upon a wider field of action, he exhibited the 
same practical wisdom elsewhere so fruitful in 
happy results, and escaped those vexations and 
disappointments which are so often the price of 
political distinction. 

Of his love of reading it seems hardly possible 
to speak in terms of exaggeration ; for a good 



Memoir. 77 

book was his constant and cherished companion. 
Biography was his chosen study ; and years of 
dihgent appHcation had famiharized him not only 
with the hves of distinofuished men, but with their 
pubhshed letters and ana. His excellent memory 
enabled him to preserve ever afterward a distinct 
impression of the character of each individual in 
turn ; so that the estimate he had formed of the 
relative claims of gfreat men to our admiration and 
esteem was far more just and exact than could 
be expected of the ordinary reader, in whose 
mind the pages of to-day secure a lodgement 
only at the price of effacing much, if not quite 
all, that has just preceded them. Poetry and 
novels lost none of their charms upon him ; 
Goldsmith being his favorite poet, and of prose 
writers, Scott. He seemed never tired of prais- 
ing Lockhart's " Life of Sir Walter : " indeed, he 
greatly admired the Scotch character, and had all 
the intimacy of such acquaintance with Edinburgh 
and its associations as can be obtained from 
books. His reading was almost exclusively con- 
fined to English literature ; and he took a lively 
interest in the current publications of the day, 
rarely permitting himself to miss a single number 
of the foreign reviews. Of our own political his- 
tory it is perhaps unnecessary to add that he had 
thoughtfully examined nearly every volume of con- 
sequence in that department to which he could 
gain access. 

Though not an anticjuary, he recognized the 



7 8 Memoir. 

fine flavor of an authentic bit of early history or 
biography ; and in the range of local tradition his 
memory had treasured up a rich fund of incident 
and anecdote. Of late years he was frequently 
applied to for information about people who were 
passing off the stage half a century ago ; and he 
could recall a name, or verify a date, from mem- 
ory with apparent ease. His bright, clever say- 
ings went the rounds of the bar ; and he proved 
no exception to the rule that lawyers as a profes- 
sion are good story-tellers. When Mr. Hackett 
related an anecdote (and he always had a perti- 
nent one ready) his good humor and happy mode 
of expression insured a treat to the listener ; and, 
while his conversation on any subject was inter- 
esting and instructive, it was specially entertain- 
ing whenever he indulged in personal reminis- 
cences. With w4iat felicity he drew upon this 
store of local anecdote to illustrate a point, the 
reader may infer from the following extract, 
which is the opening paragraph of a disqui- 
sition upon what turns out to be rather a dry 
subject : — 

" At our last meeting a friend requested me to write upon 
the dangers of radicalism. Some years ago an embarrassed 
debtor applied to one of our money-lenders for a loan of a few 
hundred dollars, as he expressed it, 'to pay his debts with.' By 
way of seconding his application he added, ' I knew you were a 
careful man : so I have got Dr. Goddard to write the note, and 
I have signed it, and every thing is correct.' The other quickly 
replied, ' It would have suited my purpose better if you had 
written the note, and Dr. (ioddard signed it.' Had I furnished 



Memoir. 79 

tlie theme, and my friend written the essay, it would have been 
better for the association, though it might not have been ([uite 
so well for radicalism." 



We have seen that, hke many a man In the 
full tide of professional success, Mr. Hackett 
managed to find time to employ himself in con- 
genial tasks outside the routine of his daily work. 
He had a strong natural taste for letters, and had 
opportunity offered for its cultivation, it is not 
unlikely he would have left behind something of 
enduring value. What his industrious pen accom- 
plished does not, however, fairly invite criticism, 
simply because he cannot be said to have entered 
the lists as a writer : he turned his hand to com- 
pose an essay, an editorial, or a brief memorial 
sketch, only by way of diversion, or because of 
a passing demand with which he felt impelled to 
comply. For the most part, he wrote imperson- 
ally, or for a limited circle of friends : in the 
only instances where he assumed the responsibil- 
ity of avowed authorship the results were highly 
creditable. Whatever may be said of the merits 
or defects of his style, there can be no question 
that he exhibited rare capacity as a writer of mem- 
oirs. His observation was keen, searching, and 
accurate : as in reading biography he discerned 
between the lines the law of success or failure, so 
in contact day after day with his fellow-men he 
quietly outlined the true proportions of this or 
that person's character, reviewing the past, or an- 



8o Memoir. 

ticipating with almost unerring vision his future 
career. "His power of perception and apprecia- 
tion of men's character," says a gentleman of some 
repute in literary circles, " deserves to be strongly 

stated. Take, for instance, his notice of . I 

doubt if there was much in common between 

Mr. and himself; yet the sketch shows a 

delicate analysis not at all common, and shows 
also a judgment quite independent and above 

the local feeling ; for Mr. was laughed at 

by most, and misunderstood by all, in Ports- 
mouth." 

The art of letter-writing was not unknown to 
him of whom we are speaking ; for he had learned 
to employ his pen before the system of fast mails 
and cheap postage had begun to rob correspond- 
ence of its distinctive features. Familiar letters, 
penned without suspicion of their ever falling be- 
neath the eye of the public, reveal at times some- 
what of the writer's actual self, for which we may 
look elsewhere in vain. Since it was in no wise 
irksome to him to write private letters, Mr. Hack- 
ett wrote a great many ; but few, however, are 
now preserved. As a fair specimen, the following 
extract is appended, from a letter which he ad- 
dressed many years ago to one of his sons, who 
had just been sent away from home to school at 
the aee of fifteen : — 



" I am glad to learn that you are in good spirits, and enjoy 
your school. It must be much easier to learn your lessons in a 



Memoir. 8 1 

school where you are pleasantly situated than if it were other- 
wise. ... In regard to going to church I wish you to go to 
such place as suits you best. 

" I am desirous, of course, that you should make good prog- 
ress ; but I do not wish you to make any extraordinary exertions, 
or to study too hard. I want you to enjoy being at school, and 
to walk, play, and read, as well as study. Take abundant time 
for exercise — health is of more importance than study. In 
addition to the play-ground, walking is not only pleasant, but 
healthful. If you can find an older and better informed young 
man than yourself, you will find walking in such company an 
interesting and important part of education. A great deal can 
be learned from a well-informed and pure-minded young com- 
panion in walks. One of the reasons why so-called educated 
people are really ignorant is because they study books, and 
study nothing else. When they take their post of duty, they 
gain neither fortune nor fame, because they do not know how 
to be useful. 

" A young man, for instance, is to be a lawyer. He, of 
course, should not practise law until he has studied it, nor 
should he study it until he has finished his preliminary educa- 
tion. Still, all moral questions bearing on the rights and duties 
of man have a direct connection with that profession, and the 
careful consideration and discussion of those questions are edu- 
cating him for his future occupation. So of the passions and 
principles which influence and control men : these a young 
student should see, observe, and consider. So of the causes 
which tend to the production and accumulation of property in 
individuals and communities, — those habits which strengthen 
and weaken the mental and moral powers : these, and subjects 
like these, tend as directly to educate and fit a young man to 
meet the labors and duties of life as mathematics, or Latin, or 
Cireek. 

" Besides, I am very anxious that you should cultivate the 
habit of declaiming. Do not do it as a drudgery, but learn to 
like it and to seek occasions to indulge the liking. Carefully 
analyze the sources of failure and success ; avoid the one, and 



82 Memoir. 

cultivate the other. Take pahis with the manner, and correct 
faults. 

" Besides, at least once in a week write some essay. Let it 
be short, but composed of well-considered sentences. Be care- 
ful to cultivate an easy and graceful style. I think the ' Spec- 
tator ' should be within reach ; so that you could read one 
of Addison's or Steele's papers just before you begin to 
write. The best method which occurs to me of writing an 
essay is, once in a week, to write a letter to some one of your 
acquaintances, and after a few lines about yourself, and the 
school, etc., to write upon some theme. Do it deliberately, 
and not upon the jump, as I write you now, amidst chatter- 
ing and interruptions. In this way you will find in a short 
time that you can with ease write, speak, or converse on many 
subjects. 

" Another thing worthy of consideration ; and that is. care to 
improve in conversation. I do not mean always talking by rule, 
but that the scope of conversation should be wide, with some 
care that there should be point in the thought, and correctness, 
and, when attainable, elegance in the expression. In doing this 
the freshness and really extemporaneous character of conversa- 
tion must be preserved. 

" But more than enough of this. I only make suggestions, 
leaving your good sense to be your guide." . . . 

In person Mr. Hackett stood erect, and lacked 
but little of six feet in heiofht. His frame was 
well built, inclining somewhat in later years to 
portliness. His features were open, strong, and 
regular : his Roman nose and firm chin might 
have given him a stern expression, had it not 
been for the large, pleasure-beaming eyes, or the 
gold-bowed glasses that he frequently wore when 
out of doors, and that lent an expression of be- 
nignity to his countenance. The engraving that 



Memoir. '^2) 

accompanies this volume is from a photograph 
taken at about the age of seventy, and may be 
relied upon as a faithful likeness ; from this pho- 
tograph also Tenney has painted two excellent 
portraits, one of which hangs in the Senate 
chamber of the State-house at Concord. 

But these pages have already far transgressed 
their assiofned limits, and must be brought to a 
close. There is no need to summarize the traits 
of Mr. Hackett's character : he had nothing to 
conceal, and what he was is plainly to be read, as 
is the lesson of his life. " Although far removed 
from my native place," writes an honored judge 
of an United States court, " I have never failed 
constantly to know of and to honor his unsullied 
purity, patriotism, generosity, and noble deeds. 
His was not only a life of eminent usefulness to 
his fellow-rnen and to his country, but it was 
adorned with all those noblest qualities to w^hich 
we turn with just pride, and which endeared him 
most to those who knew him best. Proud of 
havinof been numbered amono- his friends, I 
w^ould pay to his memory the tribute of my pro- 
found veneration, and earnest, sincere, and deep- 
seated affection." 

Does this seem the language of studied eulo- 
gy ? The youth struggling for an education has 
never forgotten the hand reached out to befriend 
him, or the words of kindly cheer spoken by a 
voice now hushed forever. As a great English 



84 Memoir. 

novelist, but lately entered into rest, said of his 
still greater brother : "I thought of this when 
I looked down into his grave after he was 
laid there ; for I looked down into it over 
the shoulder of a boy to whom he had been 
kind." 



II. 
OBITUARY SKETCHES. 



OBITUARY SKETCHES. 



The following obituary, wliich appeared in "The 
Portsmouth Daily Chronicle," upon the morning after 
his death, was written by his pastor, Rev. James De 
Normandie : — 

The apprehensions which our whole community has felt for 
some time, that the illness of this distinguished citizen might 
prove fatal, grew only stronger when it was announced on Fri- 
day that his disease had assumed a more serious aspect. He 
sank rapidly but peacefully away, and died about four o'clock 
in the afternoon. 

William Henry Young Hackett was born in Gilmanton, in 
this State, September 24th, 1800. He received his early educa- 
tion at Gilmanton Academy, then an institution of some note, 
and read law, — iirst with Matthew Perkins of Sanbornton 
Square, afterwards with Ichabod Bartlett of this city, — and 
began the practice of law here in January, 1826. On the 
2ist of December following, Mr. Hackett married Miss Olive 
Pickering, second daughter of the late Joseph W. Pickering, 
and immediately after occupied the house, No. 8;^ Congress 
Street, which has been his home to the present time. Many of 
our citizens will recall the happy celebration of the golden wed- 
ding, not quite two years since, when the coujile, venerable but 
still unbroken by the experiences and cares of half a century, 
stood in the room consecrated by so many home associations, 
while children and children's children came to bring: their offer- 



88 Obituary Sketches. 

ings, and the house was thronged with the few who could go 
back over the whole period, and the "many who were friends of 
later years. 

Soon after coming to the bar, Mr. Hackett was elected a 
director of the Piscataqua Bank, — an office he held until he 
became president ; and this latter position he retained until the 
affairs of the bank were closed. He was then elected president 
of the Piscataqua Exchange Bank, and held that office for 
twenty years. In the winter of 1863, being in Washington as 
counsel in an important suit m the United States Supreme 
Court, Hon. Salmon P. Chase, then secretary of the treasury, 
requested him, upon his return to Portsmouth, to establish a 
national bank. He did so, and this was the first national bank 
of this city, and also of the country ; he became its president, 
and was at the time of his death. 

Mr. Hackett was also president of the Piscataqua Savings 
Bank, recently organized, the oldest trustee of the Portsmouth 
Savings Bank, and a director in the Portland, Saco, and Ports- 
mouth Railroad. He has frequently represented the city in 
the Legislature, has been president of the New Hampshire 
Senate, was a member of the recent convention for revising 
the State constitution, and the oldest practising lawyer of the 
Rockingham bar. 

Mr. Hackett had an easy and pleasant manner of speaking, 
which made him the first choice as a presiding officer upon all 
public occasions ; and for many years no one has had kinder 
or more just and acceptable words of eulogy for associates who 
have earlier been called away. His reading and studies have 
been directed in the line of historical and biographical research, 
and his conversation abounded in interesting reminiscences of 
many who long ago were prominent in the business and politics 
of New England, and especially of New Hampshire. 

While Mr. Hackett must be greatly missed by our active 
community, nowhere can his loss be more felt than in the 
South Parish of this city, where his constancy, his punctuality, 
his careful attention, and his unswerving loyalty to his succes- 
sive pastors, have made him always a prominent and cherished 



Obituary Sketches. 89 

member. When, as a young man, he came to Portsmouth, and 
was not quite decided which church he should attend, he heard 
one day in a company the preaching of Dr. Parker so severely 
criticised for the emphasis it laid upon a true life rather than a 
correct creed, that he thought to himself he should hke to hear 
this clergyman preach who was so greatly denounced. The 
next Sunday he went to Dr. Parker's church, and from that 
time until his death, unless out of town or seriously ill, was 
hardly once absent from his accustomed seat. 

For an unusually long life he has been an example of indus- 
try, diligence, fidelity, temperance, success in all public duties 
and private relationships ; of uniform kindness and regularity ; 
of unostentatious hospitality; of one who attained wealth, posi- 
tion, influence, not by a fortunate turn of speculation, but by 
persevering toil, — a representative of a generation fast passing 
away, which held that steady application to a chosen pursuit 
was a characteristic of all true manhood and all useful living. 

It is long since we have been called upon to notice the 
decease of one so widely and well known in our community, or 
whose death will be felt in so many circles, — one more justly 
honored or more worthily regretted ; and of what this loss is to 
that quiet home circle we may not speak. It is greater to us 
all, because of that activity of life which has given no impres- 
sion of the inroads or feebleness of old age. In undecayed 
vigor of mind he asked for his children and his children's chil- 
dren, and with calmness and confidence spoke a parting word 
to each one. We may be grateful for what this long life has 
brought with it, and that, before increasing infirmities and dis- 
abilities came, which would have kept him from chosen activi- 
ties and been to him a constant weariness, he has been gathered 
to his people. 

There were few friends at Portsmouth to whom the 
subject of this memoir had been longer or more closely 
attached than the late Honorable Richard Jenness, at 
whose death in 1872, Mr. Hackett, through the columns 
of "The Portsmouth Journal," paid a warm but just trib- 



90 Obituary Sketches. 

Lite to a character remarkable for breadth of observation 
and for indomitable energy. It was left to the son, 
John Scribner Jenness, Esq.,^ of New York City, grate- 
fully to requite this service by contributing to the same 
newspaper, of date August 17th, 1878, the following 
sketch : — 

There is a deep sense of loss in our community. In the 
decease of the Honorable William Henry Young Hackett, it is 
everywhere felt that a good and useful citizen has been taken 
away, a strong prop has been displaced, an ancient and stable 
reliance removed forever. What a large part, we now reflect, 
has been filled by our late distinguished citizen among our 
people ! what various duties has he honorably discharged ! 
what a noble and profitable example has he afforded of uniform 
kindliness and courtesy, and of an unsullied probity, during the 
whole career of a long life ! As we meditate, the true figure of 
our departed friend rises on the memory to attract our esteem, 
aad to arouse an honest pride, even while it deepens our heart- 
felt regrets. 

The deceased was born at Gilmanton, in the first year of 
the present century, — a rugged, sterile township, where little 
could be raised beyond that sturdy crop of energy and enter- 
prise which has everywhere enriched the sons of New Hamp- 
shire. The young man, having received a good education at 
Gilmanton Academy, early developed a taste for the profession 
of the law. While a student, he happened to attend the trial 
of a cause at Gilmanton, in which our former townsman, Hon. 
Ichabod Bartlett, was one of the counsel ; and he was so deeply 
impressed by the adroitness, wit, and eloquence of that distin- 
guished advocate, that he resolved to follow him to Portsmouth, 
and seek admittance to his office. With a very slender purse, 
the young man crossed the country, partly on foot, and reached 
Portsmouth in April, 1822. He was received as a student into 
Bartlett's olifice, eking out his scanty means during his novitiate 

I Mr. John Scribner Jenness died August loth, 1879, at " The Wentworth," Newcastle, 
New Hampshire, while these sheets were passing through the press. 



Obituary Sketches. 91 

by keeping a school, and was admitted to the bar in January, 
1826. In December of that year he married Miss OHve Pick- 
ering, second daughter of the late Joseph W. Pickering, Esq., 
and took up his residence at the dwelling-house on Congress 
Street, where he lived until his death. Two years ago the 
venerable couple, surrounded by an unbroken family, celebrated 
their golden wedding in the same rooms where they had held 
their nuptial festivities. 

When the "young aspirant entered the bar, he found in the 
profession an array of men of very superior talents. Jeremiah 
Mason was there, and Levi Woodbury, Frank Pierce, Ichabod 
Bartlett, Nathaniel A. Haven, Jr., Edward Cutts, and several 
others, who adorned the high ranks of their profession. To 
compete with such men as these was indeed an arduous task. 
But the elastic spirits and tireless energy of the Gilmanton youth 
never failed him in the struggle ; and it was but a short time 
before he acquired a substantial practice, which continued to 
increase upon him so long as his other avocations gave him 
leisure to accept it. 

Mr. Hackett's mind was essentially prompt and alert ; his 
perceptions were unusually acute ; he had a quick discernment 
of human character, an experienced knowledge of affairs, a 
common-sense sagacity, which at the trial of causes he more 
confidently relied on, perhaps, than on the profound study of 
cases and precedents. He was a ready, fluent speaker, who 
knew how to state his case clearly and to present it to the best 
advantage. An ambitious young man thus fully ecjuipped could 
hardly fail to gain prominence, even among those great intel- 
lects of his contemporaries. 

His practice during the half-century he was at the bar was 
very multifarious, embracing cases at common law and equity, 
at nisi prius and in banco, in probate and in admiralty, in the 
State and in the Federal courts. Many of these cases involved 
large interests : indeed, we may add that very few cases of 
importance have arisen for many years in our community, in 
which his name as counsel does not appear upon the one side 
or the other. He did not, however, regard a lawsuit as a sort 



92 Obituary Sketches. 

of intellectual entertainment, though such had been the idea of 
the preceding generation : he regarded it and treated it as a 
mere business matter. His design always was to assert or pro- 
tect the real interests of his client, without seeking occasion in 
the courts for the vain display of oratory ; and his clients had 
reason to be thankful to him in the general success which 
crowned his efforts in their behalf. 

Mr. Hackett early entered public life. Even before his 
admission to the bar, he had ser\'ed, in 1824-25, as clerk of 
the State Senate. In 1828 he was an active member of the 
Young Men's party, which supported the Adams administra- 
tion against the thickening assaults of " Old Hickory." But, 
as is well known, the Whig party were utterly routed in that 
great contest, and for the ensuing twenty years the State fell 
into the hands of the Democracy. At length, the old issues 
having died out, the Whigs began to regain the ascendency. 
In 1850, and for a number of years afterwards, Mr. Hackett 
represented Portsmouth in the Legislature. In 1861 he served 
as State senator from the First District, and the following year 
(1862) he was chosen president of the Senate. He proved an 
excellent presiding officer, and secured the entire confidence 
of that body, without distinction of party. He was an earnest 
supporter of the government during the great Rebellion. In a 
speech made in the Senate July 20th, 1 861, he declared emphati- 
cally, "This Rebellion is to be crushed, and the Union pre- 
sened. The government will be stronger after it has subdued 
the Rebellion than ever before. Terrible as this crisis is, it was 
as inevitable as the American Revolution, and will in its results 
be as full of blessings." With these sentiments he did all in 
his power, both in the halls of legislation and in the rostrum of 
public assemblies, to stimulate the people, and strengthen the 
hands of government, for the vigorous prosecution of the war. 

Our limited space hardly permits us even to enumerate the 
various town and city offices he from time to time accepted, 
or the party conventions he attended, or the party commit- 
tees he constantly served upon. But though his services to his 
party were unremitting, yet he was never a bitter partisan. 



Obituary Sketches, 93 

His friendly temper was not soured by party differences. 
There was really no narrow bigotry in his well-balanced mind. 
His politics were naturally cautious and conservative, and as 
he acquired a large estate in the community that tone of mind 
deepened. But, though his political convictions were strong, 
he never knew how to hate heartily an opponent ; and in 
return his opponents, while they deplored what they consid- 
ered his errors of opinion, always respected his honesty. 

Amid these public services and the cares of a large law prac- 
tice, our lamented townsman found time to pursue those lite- 
rary studies for which he had a keen relish. In belles-lettres^ 
particularly in memoirs, biographies, historical reminiscences, 
and the like, his reading was extensive. Such books, for in- 
stance, as Boswell's "Johnson," or Campbell's "Lives of the 
Lord Chancellors " and " Chief Justices," were great favorites 
with him, and in this kind of writing his own pen was very feli- 
citous. As it was his fate to survive nearly all the friends of his 
youth, he was called upon as one by one fell away to write 
their memoirs and obituary notices. In executing this friendly 
duty he displayed a particular excellence. His biographical 
sketch, for instance, of Charles W. Brewster, printed among the 
" Rambles about Portsmouth," is a fine specimen of his literary 
skill. His memoir of Andrew Halliburton, prefixed to a collec- 
tion of that gentleman's Essays, is a model in that kind of com- 
position. Clear and epigrammatic in style, with well-chosen 
language and a pleasing cadence of structure, the piece dis- 
plays much nice discrimination of character, and abounds in 
just and judicious reflections. Another fair specimen of his 
writing may be found in his sketch of John Jay, published in 
"The American Whig Review," 1845. Numerous were the 
literary clubs and educational institutions of which he was a 
member ; but we can only refer here to his connection with the 
New Hampshire Historical Society, of which he became a mem- 
ber as early as 1835, vice-president in i860, and president from 
1861 to 1866, and for which he always felt a warm interest. 
In recognition of his literary services and acquirements, the 
degree of A.M. was conferred on him by Dartmouth College. 



94 Obituary Sketches. 

It was the business of banking, however, which chiefly en- 
grossed his attention during the later years of his hfe. Chosen 
into the direction of the Piscataqua PJank in 1827, he remained 
closely attached to that institution and its successors,— the Pis- 
cataqua Exchange and the First National, — until his death. For 
many years he had been president of these corporations, as well 
as of the Piscataqua Savings Bank, and a trustee of the Ports- 
mouth Savings Bank. In the management of monetary insti- 
tutions he was always successful. The rapidity and accuracy 
of his intuitions here found full scope, and they were amply 
rewarded. A considerable portion of his ample estate arose 
from his skill and prudence in the management of these 
moneyed corporations. 

Among his many other important business employments we 
will only mention his presidency of the Portsmouth, Great Falls, 
and Conway Railroad, and his directorship in the Eastern Rail- 
road in New Hampshire, and in the Portland, Saco, and Ports- 
mouth Railroad. 

Mr. Hackett's life, we perceive, was a very full and busy one ; 
but, nevertheless, he found time for the interests of moraUty 
and religion. For some years of his life he was corresponding 
secretary of the Peace Society. Shortly after his arrival in 
Portsmouth he attached himself warmly to the South Parish 
Church, then under the ministrations of Dr. Parker, and he 
continued one of its most active and efficient members during 
the remainder of his life. The venom of religious bigotry and 
fanaticism never poisoned his nature ; but his .views on this 
great subject were broad and liberal. Creeds and platforms 
were to him of little or no value. His practical wisdom re- 
garded only the fruits of professed religion as evidence of its 
sincerity and value. 

In his daily intercourse with his fellow-men he was always 
cheerful and courteous, and, though his feelings were' naturally 
impulsive, it was rarely that he gave way to the display of pas- 
sion. His mind was indeed in nearly all respects evenly 
balanced, and stopped far short of excess in any part of his life 
or character. A devoted husband, a kind father, a faithful 



Obituary Sketches. 95 

friend, a useful and honorable citizen, how many are there to 
lament his loss ! how many to profit by his example ! His 
long life was a good one, and a serviceable one in many various 
ways. In his last sickness, as he recalled the passages of his 
life, he was borne up by the consciousness that he had won an 
honorable place among his fellow-men ; and one of the last 
sentences he uttered was to his grandson : " Do no discredit to 
the name." 

kx. the beautiful funeral service performed over the body by 
his friend, the Reverend James De Normandie, a noble Arabic 
hymn was read, entitled " He who died at Azan," a verse of 
which we quote, as being so expressive of our departed friend's 
assurance of the immortality of the soul : — 

" While the man whom ye call dead, 
In unspoken bliss, instead, 
Lives, and loves you ; lost, 'tis true. 
By such light as shines for you ; 
But in the light ye cannot see 
Of unfulfilled felicity, — 
In enlarging paradise. 
Lives a life that never dies." 



III. 

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR 
AND COURT. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR 
AND COURT. 



At the October trial term, 1878, of the Supreme 
Court, held at Portsmouth (the Honorable Isaac W. 
Smith, Justice), the members of the Rockingham bar 
came together to take appropriate notice of Mr. Hackett's 
decease. The meeting was held on the 23d of Novem- 
ber ; and the following resolutions were unanimously 
adopted : — 

Resolved^ That the Rockingham County Bar regard the decease 
of the Honorable William H. Y. Hackett as an irreparable loss, 
alike to an extensive circle of devoted friends, to society at large, 
and to the Bar of which he was so long an honored and leading 
member. 

Resolved, That while we point with just pride to the profes- 
sional position of the deceased, we shall ever recur with still 
greater satisfaction to the personal qualities which endeared him 
to us, as a companion, a friend, and a brother. 

Hon. William W. Stickney of Exeter, president of the 
bar, reported the resolutions to the Court as follows : — 

May rr plel-vse your Honor, — At a meeting of the members 
of the bar of the county of Rockingham, held immediately after 
the adjournment of the Court this forenoon, resolutions were 
passed in relation to the death of our late brother, William H. 
V. Hackett, who recently died at his residence in Portsmouth, 



loo Proceedings of tJie 

and I was requested to announce his death, and present the 
resokitions, to the Court. 

Mr. Hackett was long a prominent member of the bar in this 
county, having been admitted in the year 1826. I came to this 
county in 1827, and he was then in practice in Portsmouth. 
During this long period Mr. Hackett was engaged in the 
active duties of his profession, and enjoyed in an eminent 
degree the confidence of the commijnity where he lived. In 
the practice of his profession he was distinguished for his atten- 
tion and fidelity to the business intrusted to him, for his good 
sense and sound judgment in the management of his cases, 
and above all for his integrity of character. During his long 
practice no charge or suspicion was ever made or entertained 
against his honesty or fair dealing : he was earnest and ener- 
getic in his efforts to maintain the rights and interests of his 
clients ; but no dishonorable or improper means were ever 
resorted to by him. In all the relations of life he maintained a 
high position, and his many social and estimable qualities 
endeared him to all who became acquainted with him. He 
was largely employed, and stood high as a business man ; and 
many important trusts involving large amounts were committed 
to him, all of which were discharged with an ability and fidelity 
seldom equalled. 

I now present these resolutions to the Court, and ask that 
they may be entered upon the records of the Court. 

Hon. Albert R. Hatch said : — 

May it please your Honor, — In rising to second the request 
of the president of the bar, that you will direct the resolutions 
we have adopted to be entered upon the records of the Court, 
I feel that I am unable to add any thing to what has been 
by him said so well, so truly, and so eloquently. 

During the whole of my professional life, and for a period 
of nearly forty years, Mr. Hackett was my neighbor, and we 
were constantly engaged in the practice of the law before the 
same tribunals. I knew in him an upright and able lawyer, an 



Bar and Court. i o i 

agreeable companion, and a kind and constant friend. Cir- 
cumstances caused us to be almost continually employed upon 
opposite sides of a large part of the litigation in this vicinity ; 
yet though I have had ample cause to respect and fear his 
learning, his acuteness, and his eloquence, there dwells in my 
memory no occurrence which tended to diminish my regard 
for him as a courteous opponent and an upright and honorable 
man. If in the zeal of advocacy, or under the smart of disap- 
pointment, any unconsidered or unkind expressions had been 
uttered, such was his generous nature, that the recollection of 
the offence was never cherished for a moment, or interrupted 
the friendly relation that has ever subsisted between us. 

Mr. Hackett was a man of great natural ability and of won- 
derful quickness of perception, to which he added an extensive 
knowledge of the law ; and his large business was constantly 
conducted with unvarying fidelity to his clients, and most con- 
stant and persistent regard for their interests. If he had any 
fault, it was that the keenness of his apprehension and the readi- 
ness ^f his judgment led him sometimes to rely upon his con- 
ception of what the law ought to be, rather than to anticipate 
the slower conclusions of the tribunal he addressed. But 
he was a successful man, his part was well maintained ; and 
his honors and prosperity were well deserved, and modestly 
borne. 

In view of the certain limits which the wisdom of the Creator 
has imposed upon human life, we may not now be permitted to 
express more than our natural regret that a life so well filled, a 
career so long and so honorable, has come to its appointed 
termination. Yet I admit that it is with deep sorrow that I 
take final leave of a friend with whom I have so long associated. 
He was almost the last survivor of the members of this bar who 
were living when I was called to take part in its active practice. 
We who now stand before your Honor will be indeed fortu- 
nate, if at the end, whenever it shall come, we can compare 
our course with his, and look back to lives as well spent, duties 
as well performecf, and be followed by respect and regret as 
well deserved. 



I02 Proceedings of the 

John S. H. Frink, Esq., said he desired to add a word 
to what had already been said ; not because ceremony 
or public expectation demanded it, but as a tribute to 
one whom he had loved and respected for many years. 
Said Mr. Frink : — 

Some of the kindest words of commendation which encour- 
aged me at the commencement of my professional life came 
from the lips now cold and silenf ; and mine was no exceptional 
C9,se. Mr. Hackett always exhibited the same uniform gener- 
osity and kindness towards the younger members of the pro- 
fession. He always had a kind word of praise for what was 
well done, and a generous word of apology for what was ill 
done, by a younger brother. He seemed never to forget his 
earlier struggles or his later successes. Few, indeed, in our 
profession, have attained the same success as he. Pecuniary 
reward, public honors, and, more than all, the esteem and love 
of his felloiw-citizens, waited upon him. 

His fortune was substantial, but well deserved ; his hoMiors 
were numerous, but apparently unsought ; while he had in 
great abundance that which he seemed more highly to prize 
than all other gifts, — the commendation of those whom he 
met in the daily walks of life. 

It may be asked, whether as a lawyer he deserved all these 
favors of fortune, which so often escape the most learned and 
brilliant. I think he did. There have been at our bar, during 
my day, more accurate and learned lawyers than he, perhaps, — 
and more logical and irresistible reasoners, but none more faith- 
ful to the interests committed to them, and but few more happy 
or fortunate in their presentation. 

In the court-room he never abandoned his client's cause so 
long as a ray of hope for his success remained. Many private 
trusts were confided to him. I never heard of any abuse of 
the confidence reposed in him in these matters. His adminis- 
tration of this important branch of his practice was necessarily 
secret and confidential ; yet it could hardly b^ possible that he 
should have been chosen as the custodian of so many large 



Bar and Court. 103 

estates if he liad mal-administered them. We all know with 
what care he fostered the corporate interests committed to him : 
these prosperous institutions to-day attest his vigilance and 
prudence. 

It never seemed to me that Mr. Hackett sought political 
honors, yet such as were tendered him he accepted willingly, 
lliey were often repeated, but not various. In every public 
position, however, to which he was called, he was an acknowl- 
edged leader. The secret of Mr. Hackett's success was, that 
he was a man of many abilities, and if he was not foremost in 
all, he certainly was not inferior in any. In the department of 
literature, outside the narrow limit of the law, he was a man 
of unusual taste, and more than considerable erudition. His 
fancy inclined him largely to biographical researches, and I 
know of no one leading so active and busy a life as he who 
acquired greater knowledge in this department. He was a 
facile and graceful writer, and some of his biographical essays 
were models of good taste and excellence. 

As a companion Mr. Hackett was incomparable. He was 
accessible, familiar, and communicative, and never morose or 
ill-natured. It had been his privilege to know intimately the 
majestic ^^'ebster, the exact Mason, the learned Woodbury, and 
the brilliant Bartlett. With a rare felicity of speech and fund 
of humor, he would entertain you by the hour with reminis- 
cences of these and other distinguished men whom he had 
known during his long and active career. I know of no man 
with whom I have ever spent a pleasanter hour than with Mr. 
Hackett. 

Mr. Hackett lived to a ripe old age. He was " busy in these 
scenes to the very last plaudit." With him has passed away a 
man in every sense valuable to the community in which he 
lived. 

His Honor Judge Smith responded as follows : — 

Gentlemen OF the Bar ok R()Ckin(;ham Countv, — 1 am in 
full sympathy with the sentiments contained in the resolutions 
and addresses presented upon this occasion. Seldom is the 



I04 Proceedings of the 

bar of any county in our State called to mourn the death of 
three of its members following so soon one after another. I 
last saw our deceased friend during the closing hours of the 
last term of this Court, when he in behalf of his brethren pre- 
sented to the Court their resolutions upon the recent decease 
of Mr. Small. How little any of us then thought we should 
so soon be called to pay the same tribute of respect to his 
memory ! 

With Mr. Hackett I was well acquainted during the whole 
of my professional life. He was noted for his industry and for 
his fidelity to the cause of his clients ; and his opinions were 
generally correct and reliable. Towards his brethren in the 
profession he was affable and courteous, and he commanded 
the respect of those who knew him best. 

In his death we all feel that his city and the State, as well as 
the legal profession, have lost a prominent and valued citizen 
and lawyer. His ability, his integrity and industry in the dis- 
charge of the duties of private life, as well as when clothed with 
the responsibilities of office or in the practice of the law, gained 
for him the respect of this whole community. He was not a 
man who encouraged strife and litigation, but rather encouraged 
the settlement and adjustment of differences between men : he, 
in fact, helped preserve the peace of this community for fifty 
years. 

He was permitted more than to reach the prescribed limit 
of threescore years and ten, yet his eye had hardly become 
dimmed, or his hand tremulous with age ; while almost to the 
last his mind shone with the accustomed clearness and strength 
of the mature years of manhood. 

His character seemed to possess a well-balanced soundness 
and fulness. He was, so far as I could judge, methodical and 
careful in his business ; cautious, yet decided when the time 
for action came. He was affable and courteous in his speech 
and intercourse with others, reticent as to his own counsels, 
and truthful in action as well as in word. 

The estimate placed upon his services as a public officer was 
best shown by the repeated calls made ui)on him by his fellow- 



Bar and Court. 105 

citizens to represent them in the councils of the city and State. 
Not often does it fall to the lot of any one to occupy a seat in 
both l)ranches of the Legislature so frequently and so accep- 
tably as he did. It may truly be said of him that he was a safe 
and successful legislator, and neglected nothing in the discharge 
of his duties. He formed his opinions from careful study and 
mature reflection upon the general principles which underlie 
our free institutions. 

Into his bereaved home, and the relations he there sustained, 
we will not enter. Sufficient it is to say that those who knew 
him best loved and respected him most. By all who knew our 
deceased brother will his memory be cherished while memory 
shall last. 

The resolutions presented will be entered at large upon the 
records of the Court, agreeably to the request of the Bar. 



IV. 

SELECTIONS 
FROM MR. HACKETT'S WRITINGS. 



THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 0¥ 
JOHN JAY.' 



The American Revolution gave birth to a nation without a 
national government. A people exhilarated by successful re- 
sistance to lawful authority were called upon to become a law 
unto themselves, while both the glory and poverty incident to 
war conspired to distract them. When the war and its excite- 
ment had passed away, leaving no perceptible fruits but desola- 
tion and debt ; when, with a country convulsed by the jealousies 
of great men, and discontent scattered broadcast among the 
people, the attempt was made to form a national government, 
— a crisis impended more fearful than that involved in the 
Declaration of Independence or in any of the battles which 
followed. Even to-day one trembles as he reads the record 
of the events which followed, though knowing how they termi- 
nated. 

When a people whose only bond of union was sympathy 
flowing from a community of suffering, and resistance to oppres- 
sion, voluntarily adopted a form of government milking them 
one nation, and combining liberty with security ; when the dis- 

I Reprinted, in a condensed form, from The American Whig Review, July, 1845. 
This sketch and the papers that follow it are presented, not because they are thought to 
possess special l.terary merit, but because to a degree more than is common they bring 
before us the form and lineaments of their author; are impressed with his personality. He 
never gave them the benefit of his revision; and wherever the liberty has been taken of 
changing the text, a scrupulous care has been exercised to preserve the thought in its 
integrity. 



iio Life and Character of yohn yay. 

contented avoided anarchy, and the ambitious yielded up their 
schemes of individual power, finding a remedy in peaceful sub- 
mission to authority, — the crowning glory of the Revolution 
was consummated. As "he who ruleth his own spirit is greater 
than he who taketh a city," so was the adoption of the Federal 
Constitution a greater event than the repowned Declaration of 
Rights, or the victory which terminated the contest. 

The country will ultimately take this view of the subject, and 
learn to venerate those extraordinary men who gave direction 
to public opinion, subdued local and individual jealousies, and 
from the chaos of jarring elements formed and established a 
government. 

When great men are estimated by what they do for others, 
rather than what they accomplish for themselves, his country 
will have advanced to the standard, and will appreciate the 
character, of John Jay. When our country learns to consider 
duties as well as rights, and discovers, as it will, that internal 
passions need to be guarded against more than enemies from 
without ; when it learns to bear and rightly to [mprove the 
trials of prosperity, — Mr. Jay will enjoy a popularity, not bois- 
terous, but quiet, like the current of his life, and deep, like 
the principles that guided it. When the world seeks a model 
to live by, rather than a hero to worship, and intellectual self- 
ishness shall give place to public spirit ; when statesman and 
Christian shall have become synonymous terms, — then will tliis 
country be grateful for the example as well as the services of 
John Jay. 

It does not lie within the range of our plan to consider the 
political opinions, but simply to narrate some incidents in the 
life, and sketch a few traits in the character, of this eminent 
man. John Jay was born in the city of New York on the 12th 
of December, 1745. His ancestors were protestants, and had 
been prominent enough to attract the persecuting spirit of 
popery, and firm enough to abandon country rather than reli- 
gion. His grandfather, xA.ugustus Jay, a native of France, came 
to this country in the latter part of the seventeenth century. 
Just before -he emigrated he had made a voyage to Africa, 



Life and Character of yohn Jay. 1 1 1 

during which absence his father was compelled, on account 
of religious persecution, to abandon his property in France, 
and seek shelter in England. When Augustus Jay reached 
France, and learned the fate of his father, he had the good 
fortune to find a ship, upon which he embarked, bound to 
Charleston, South Carolina. On reaching this country he 
settled at New York, where, in 1697, he married Miss Bayard, 
one of whose ancestors, a Protestant professor of theology at 
Paris, in the reign of Louis XIII., had been driven from France 
by the Jesuit persecutions. Peter Jay, the son of Augustus 
and the father of John, married in 1725 Miss Van Cortlandt, 
whose ancestors had fled from similar persecution in Bohemia. 
The infatuation of the times forced to this country many good 
men of whom the Old World was not worthy, and whom the 
New so much needed. They brought with them principles, 
dearer for the sufferings they had occasioned, to which our in- 
stitutions trace their origin. Such were the ancestors of John 
Jay, and this slender sketch of them furnishes the key to his 
own character. 

Mr. Jay graduated at Columbia College in 1764, and at 
once entered upon the study of the law in the city of New 
York. He was admitted to the bar in 1768, and almost imme- 
diately acquired an extensive and lucrative practice. He soon 
formed a partnership with Robert R. Livingston (afterwards 
chancellor) ; but the connection continued only for a short 
time. In 1774 he married the daughter of William Livingston, 
governor of New Jersey. In May of that year, upon the 
receipt of the news of the passage of the Boston Port Bill, 
the citizens of New York held a meeting, at which Mr. Jay was 
chosen one of a committee to correspond upon the subject 
with the sister colonies. This committee was the first organ- 
ized body in the New York Colony chosen to oppose those 
measures of the mother country which resulted in the Revo- 
lution. 

In July following, Mr. Jay was elected a member of the Con- 
tinental Congress, and wrote the address of that body to the 
people of Great Britain. For nearly four years he was either a 



1 1 2 Life and Character of yoJin yay. 

member of the Congress, or occupied a prominent station in his 
native State, exchanging one ofifice for the other as the pubHc 
exigency required. In 1778 he became a member of the New- 
York convention to frame a State constitution, and made the 
draught which was adopted. Immediately thereafter he ac- 
cepted the appointment of chief justice ; and Livingston, his 
former partner, that of chancellor of the State. During this 
period Mr. Jay was a prominent member of the Committee of 
Safety, — a body which exercised undefined and nearly uncon- 
trolled executive functions. Towards the end of this year, 
again having been elected to the Congress, he resigned the 
office of chief justice, although the governor had attempted to 
persuade him to retain both positions. Not long afterward 
Congress made him its president. To the Governor of New 
York, who wrote him, requesting a recall of his resignation of 
the ofifice of chief justice, Mr. Jay replied, adhering to his 
resolution, as follows : " The Legislature may, perhaps, in con- 
sequence of this step, be induced to keep me in Congress. 
On this head I must inform you that the situation of my father's 
family is such that I cannot reconcile it to my idea of filial 
duty to be absent from them, unless my brother should be so 
circumstanced as to pay them the necessary attention." At the 
same time he wrote to his brother : " I am now to inform you 
that I have resigned the ofifice of chief justice, and if the State 
should incline to keep me here, I shall consent to stay, provided 
either you or James will undertake to attend constantly to our 
good old father and his unfortunate family : otherwise I shall at 
all events return for that purpose. Make up your mind on this 
matter : if you cannot pay the necessary attention, prevent my 
election, and let me know your intention by the first oppor- 
tunity." Arrangements were made which rendered this sacri- 
fice unnecessary, and he remained president of Congress. This 
determination, however, more unequivocably attests his real 
greatness than all the appointments to ofifice he ever received. 
An aspiring politician would have looked upon infirm and un- 
fortunate parents as clogs on his hasty feet, and upon home as 
the last theatre for the exhibition of a lofty character. 



Life and Character of yolin yay. 1 13 

No man ever filled high and varied trusts, or passed through 
exciting and trying scenes, with more loyalty to principle than 
did John Jay. Acting always from an opinion well considered 
and firmly fixed, his life has no inconsistencies to show. Though 
an early and constant friend of the Revolution, he exerted him- 
self to moderate the resentment of the people towards those 
who had taken up arms against the colonies, and to meliorate 
the condition of such as were suffering imprisonment. One 
instance of this is so characteristic, and in such contrast with 
the times, that it well deserves mention. A New York gentle- 
man who had accepted a royal commission found himself, by 
the casualties of war, made prisoner, and confined in the jail at 
Hartford. During his imprisonment Mr. Jay wrote him as 
follows : " How far your situation may be comfortable and easy, 
I know not. It is my wish, and shall be my endeavor, that it 
be as much so as may be consistent with the interest of that 
great cause to which I have devoted every thing I hold dear in 
this world. I have taken the liberty of requesting Mr. Samuel 
Browne immediately to advance you one hundred dollars on 
my account." No man more fully met the claims of country ; 
but he recognized no duties in patriotism inconsistent with the 
demands of Christianity. 

In September, 1779, Mr. Jay was appointed minister pleni- 
potentiary to Spain, and during his stay in that country was 
made one of the commissioners to negotiate peace with Great 
Britain. Upon his arrival at Paris, — where, at the end of five 
years, he signed the definitive treaty of peace, — he found but 
one other commissioner (Dr. Franklin) on the ground. As 
soon as the negotiations had opened Jay discovered that the 
American commissioners, in order to preserve their country's 
dignity and independence, would have to meet England not 
only without the aid, but in opposition to the influence, of 
France ; that it had become his duty to resist intrigues on the 
part of the French court, and to disobey the instructions of 
Congress. This he did, although Franklin opposed it ; while 
Mr. Adams upon his arrival concurred in the course that Jay 
had adopted, and Franklin ultimately gave it his sanction. In 



114 J-tf^ ^^^ Character of yohn yay. 

this trying emergency, Jay's directness and honesty were more 
than a match for the arts of diplomacy. The courts of France 
and Spain were unprepared to resist a negotiator who frankly 
avowed his object, and set to work by direct means to reach it. 
Only a pure man would have taken this bold step : no mere 
politician could thus have secured the blessings of peace, with- 
out planting the seeds of future irritation and war. 

Having accomplished the object of his appointment, Mr. Jay 
returned from Europe, in 1784, to find that Congress, notwith- 
standing he had disobeyed their instructions, had appointed 
him secretary of foreign affairs, — an office corresponding to 
that of the present secretary of state. This sufficiently indi- 
cates how Congress regarded the propriety of his conduct 
abroad. He accepted the position, although at this time so- 
licited to become governor of New York. 

In this new situation he soon felt the inefficiency of the 
Confederation, and he was led to open a correspondence with 
Washington and other leading men, upon the subject of form- 
ing a national government. The convention followed which 
framed the Constitution ; but Mr. Jay's attendance upon Con- 
gress as secretary of foreign affairs prevented him from being 
a delegate. As soon as the Constitution was proposed to the 
people, a contest began, more important, and more doubtful in 
issue, as we have said, than even the war of the Revolution 
itself. Mr. Jay's continuous and efficient efforts to secure its 
adoption were felt in every State. His association with Hamil- 
ton and Madison, in writing " The Federalist," and the influ- 
ence of those essays, are well knovvTi ; but, in addition to his 
labors in behalf of the whole country, Mr. Jay and a few otliers 
were specially relied upon to bring into line the important State 
of New York. The exertions necessary to this result may be 
inferred from the fact, that when delegates were elected eleven 
favored, while forty-six opposed, its adoption. Of the former 
were Hamilton and Jay ; and New York finally adopted the 
Constitution by a majority of three. 

Encountering the prejudices of those who feared that it con- 
fided too much in the people, and those who thought too much 



Life and Character of John Jay. 1 1 5 

discretion was given to the government ; of those who deemed 
it more important that they should be great than that their 
country should be happy ; and of those who conceived freedom 
and security as in some degree incompatible, — the adoption 
of the Federal Constitution is the most wonderful event in our 
history. Mr. Jay's agency in producing this event is alone suf- 
ficient to establish his claims to the affectionate respect and 
exalted estimation of his countrymen. Greatness largely lies in 
understanding truth and duty, and in a rigid adherence thereto ; 
and the same traits of character which prompted Mr. Jay's 
devotion to duty gave him confidence in his fellow-men, 
through which he put trust in a federate Republican govern- 
ment, — not a confidence which deifies man's passions, but 
which, in spite of them, sees in him an image of the Deity. Mr. 
Jay used to remark, that if men would never forget that the 
world is under the guidance of a Providence that errs not, it 
would save much useless anxiety, and prevent a great many 
mistakes. This trust was the foundation of his faith and suc- 
cess. Free from fear or doubt, whether during the struggles of 
the Revolution, the difficulties in negotiating peace, the con- 
flicts over the Constitution, or the controversy to which his 
treaty with England gave rise, he never for a moment distrusted 
the result. 

Washington, upon his election as President under the Fed- 
eral Constitution, requested Mr. Jay to select such a situation 
in the General Government as he might prefer, — an offer which 
could have been made to no other man in the country, and 
which indicates the estimate that a keen discerner of character 
placed upon Jay. He accepted that of chief justice of the 
United States as the post rather of duty than of honor. In 
this office he effected much in allaying opposition to the Con- 
stitution, and infusing among the people a confidence in the 
new system of government. Upon the circuits he was every- 
where received with demonstrations of respect and confidence. 
When he came to Portsmouth to hold his first court, the citi- 
zens gave him a public entry into the town, and upon his 
departure accompanied him some distance on his way. 



1 1 6 Life and Character of yohii yay. 

Jay now held the second ofifice in grade and importance 
under the government : its tenure was for life, and its emolu- 
ments could not be diminished ; yet when those in whom he 
had confidence thought a check should be given the rising 
opposition in New York to the general government, and that 
this could be done by electing him governor, he at once con- 
sented to become a candidate. He was elected by the people ; 
but the canvassers and the Legislature withheld from him the 
office. This action produced an excitement which endangered 
the peace of the State. Jay interposed, and told his supporters 
to yield to the constituted authorities : he admonished them 
not to violate by any irregular proceedings the principles they 
professed to support, but in asserting their rights to distinguish 
themselves no less for temper and moderation than for con- 
stancy and zeal. This line of conduct, so natural in a good 
man, while it calmed the excitement, deepened the affection 
for him in the State. He retained the office of chief justice. 

Although in moderate circumstances, he was at the expense 
of keeping at school six indigent boys of Rye, the town where 
he had been brought up. This act of benevolence, unknown 
even to his family, was only revealed by letters found among 
his papers after his death, from a clergyman who had acted as 
his almoner. Another anecdote illustrates in him the vigilance 
of the magistrate and the kindness of the man. While he was 
governor, a blacksmith in his neighborhood had erected a 
house and shop upon the highway, so as to obstruct the public 
travel. Jay applied to him, saying that official duty would not 
allow him to let such a breach of the law pass unnoticed, and 
requesting him to remove the encumbrance. The blacksmith 
said he could not, for he had no land. Jay offered to give him 
an acre of land, or fifty dollars to buy land with. This pro- 
posal failing, Jay directed the appropriate law-officer to prose- 
cute the blacksmith, and repeated his offer in the delinquent's 
behalf. When the Court compelled a removal of the incum- 
brance, Jay gave him the land to enable him to obey the order. 

In 1 794, in consequence of European wars, and depredations 
of Great Britain upon our commerce, all were expecting (and 



Life mid Character of yohn fay. 1 1 7 

many desiring) a declaration of war against that country, and 
our alliance with rexolutionary France. In this the most try- 
ing exigency of li^ administration, Washington determined, in 
opposition to the wishes of a large portion, if not a majority, of 
the people, to keep his country out of the strife that was con- 
vulsing Europe. About this time a session of the Supreme 
Court called the chief justice to Philadelphia, then the seat of 
government. From the early days of the Revolution, Jay had 
been the confidential friend and adviser of Washington. The 
President now requested him to undertake a special mission to 
England. This to Jay was an unwelcome invitation ; and he 
resisted it, until he saw that to decline would be to disregard 
the demands of duty. Writing to Mrs. Jay at this time, he 
says, " There is here a serious determination to send me to 
England, if possible to avert a war. The object is so interest- 
ing to our country, and the combination of circumstances such, 
that I find myself in a dilemma between personal considerations 
and pubhc ones." Further on, in the same letter, he remarks, 
" This appointment is not of my seeking : on the contrary, I 
regard it as a measure not to be desired, but to be submitted 
to. If it should please (iod to make me instrumental to the 
continuance of peace, and in preventing the effusion of blood, 
and other evils and miseries incident to war, we shall both have 
reason to rejoice. Whatever may be the event, the endeavor 
will be virtuous, and consecjuently consolatory. Let us repose 
unlimited trusf in our Maker ; it is our business to adore and 
to obey." 

It were a sufficient eulogy of any man to say that for such a 
mission he was nominated by Washington, opposed by Aaron 
Burr ; that he saved his country from the devastation of war, 
and secured her commercial prosperity. He retained, it will be 
remembered, the office of chief justice during this period : for 
this reason he refused to accept any compensation as minister. 
Jay had never so reluctantly accepted an appointment ; but 
persuaded that he had secured the permanent interests of his 
country, and had anticipated the ultimate judgment of the 
people, he entered upon the new trusts which awaited him on 
his return, with no fears for the fi^te of his recent labors.' 



1 1 8 Life and Character of John Jay. 

Lord Grenville, the British minister whom Mr. Jay met in 
the negotiation, conceived for him a high esteem ; and the 
subsequent correspondence between them exhibits the gratifi- 
cation they both derived from their joint agency in preserving 
to their respective countries the blessings of peace. Conscious 
that each had served his country and the cause of humanity, 
they could well bear the censure which they did not deserve. 
With the United States at peace and in security, the clamorous 
imputations upon Jay that reached him from every quarter 
seemed to calm rather than disturb him. We trust that when- 
ever ambitious and short-sighted demagogues seek by aggra- 
vating popular prejudice to plunge a nation into war, there will 
again be found, in our own and other countries, strong and 
wise men to avert so great an evil. 

Mr. Jay returned from Europe in the spring of 1795. Two 
days before he landed, he was declared elected governor of 
New York. The people, anxious to redress the outrage inflicted 
upon the State by disregarding on a former occasion their 
clearly expressed voice in his favor, had now given him a large 
majority of their suffrages. His arrival in New York was wel- 
comed by an immense concourse of people and by the ringing 
of bells. He resigned the office of chief justice to accept that 
of governor. Although his predecessor of opposite pohtics had 
controlled the appointing power for many years, and although 
party feeling ran higher at the beginning of his administration 
than at any previous time in the history of the ^tate, Jay, dur- 
ing his six years as governor, never once removed an officer for 
political reasons. So entirely in the spirit of the Constitution 
did he administer the office, that no effective opposition could 
be made to him, and he enjoyed a popular, rather than a party, 
support. The only act which seems to have excited much 
censure was his proclamation recommending " to his fellow- 
citizens throughout the State to unite in public thanksgiving to 
that Being through whose Providence the ravages of the yellow 
fever had been stayed." Upon his suggestion, the rigors of the 
penal code were softened, and the system adopted of employ- 
ing convicts in industrial pursuits. 



Life and Character of yolin Jay. 1 19 

Jay had no fellowship with that expediency which allows a 
real wrong in order to avert a probable evil. Several incidents 
in his administration exhibit him in this light, only one of which 
we have space to relate. During the progress of the presiden- 
tial canvass in 1800, Jay was known to be one of those who 
distrusted the party opposing the re-election of President 
Adams. The election had proceeded so far as to indicate a 
probability that the State of New York would hold the balance 
of power. The existing Legislature sympathized in opinion 
with Governor Jay ; but it was regarded as uncertain whether 
the next, upon which in the ordinary mode of procedure the 
choice of electors of President would devolve, might not favor 
the opponent of Mr. Adams. In this state of things the gov- 
ernor was appealed to, by prominent men of his party, to con- 
vene the existing Legislature for the purpose of securing the 
appointment of electors favorable to Mr. Adams, as the only 
means (so they said, and no doubt thought) of preserving the 
Constitution. A distinguished gentleman wrote to him, urging 
a compliance with this rec[uest. After Jay's death, this letter 
was found among his papers, with the following memorandum 
in his handwriting : '' Proposing a measure for party purposes 
which 1 think it would not become me to adopt." 

Through life Jay was the uncompromising opponent of 
slavery. In his early years he was president of a manumission 
society, — a circumstance used by his opponents when he was 
a candidate for governor. Slavery at that time existed in New 
York, and for several years his annual messages urged its aboli- 
tion. Through his influence an act for this purpose was pro- 
posed in successive Legislatures, until at last, in 1799, upon a 
fourth attempt, it passed both branches by decisive majorities. 
No measure of his administration had a more marked and 
favorable effect upon the morals, happiness, and prosperity, of 
the State. 

In the latter part of the year 1800, towards the close of 
Governor Jay's administration, Chief Justice Ellsworth resigned ; 
and Mr. Jay was again appointed chief justice of the United 
States. President Adams, in a letter urging him to accept this 



I20 Life mid Chai^acter of John Jciy. 

appointment, remarked that he had no permission from Mr. 
Jay to nominate him to this office ; but that it appeared to Mr. 
Adams, that Providence had thrown in his way an opportunity, 
not only of marking to the pubHc the spot where, in his opinion, 
the greatest mass of worth remained collected in one indi- 
vidual, but of furnishing his country with the best security its 
inhabitants afforded against the increasing dissolution of morals. 
Upon another occasion Mr. Adams writes, " I have often said 
that when my confidence in Mr. Jay shall cease, I must give 
up the cause of confidence, and renounce it with all men." 

Mr. Jay was now fifty-five years of age. He had never 
once sought office ; yet for twenty-seven years, without a day's 
interruption, he had held some important public trust. Solicited 
to accept a re-election as governor, and to be re-appointed to 
the second office in the nation, we find him hesitating, not as 
to which was the better position, but whether consistently with 
the claims of the public he could retire to private life. This 
question he examined as carefully, and endeavored to meet as 
impartially, as if it had been a judicial one. After mature 
deliberation he decided that duty did not require him to accept 
the office of chief justice. It was afterwards, as is well known, 
conferred upon the late Chief Justice Marshall of Virginia. He 
also declined re-election as governor, and retired in 1801 to 
private life, carrying with him reflections such as have rarely 
sweetened the retirement of the world's great men. 

It is evident, from the manner in which he filled them, that 
Mr. Jay accepted public trusts as a duty. That he looked upon 
office in no other light is evident, too, from the fact that in 
the prime of life he declined most important and honorable 
trusts. He relinciuished public employment, after a service of 
more than a quarter of a century, as pure as when he took it. 
His retirement astonished those who did not understand the 
motives which had always governed him. From the exciting 
scenes in which he had been a prominent, successful, and hon- 
ored actor, he withdrew to a country residence at Bedford, 
about fifty miles from the city of New York, and three miles 
from the post-road, where the mail then passed but once a 



Life and Character of John Jay. 1 2 1 

week. To a friend inquiring what could Mr. Jay do in such a 
place, he replied that he had a long and busy life to look back 
upon, and an eternity to look forward to. 

How different the retirement which Jay sought from that to 
which Bonaparte was forced soon afterward ! He who in his 
youth resolutely determined that " ideas of filial duty " should 
govern his conduct, whatever became of ambition, found about 
him in the decline of life the same sense of filial duty exempli- 
fied in his children. The ripened fruits of a well-spent life sur- 
rounded him. There were no unfinished plans of ambition to 
regret, no wreck of selfish purposes to mar the retrospect ; nor 
did neglected duties, abused powers, or betrayed confidence, 
arise before him to cloud his serene view of the future. Bona- 
parte, on the contrary, while ruler over half of Europe, was as 
effectually exiled from those sympathies, affections, and duties, 
which make up the deep course of life, and constitute its hap- 
piness, — as when confined upon a solitary rock in the ocean. 

Mr. Jay now divided his time between agricultural pursuits, 
his books, and his friends. Though no longer in public life, 
he had not retired from usefulness. He connected himself 
with several agricultural societies, ser\^ed as president of that in 
his own county, and was zealous in introducing among the 
people the various improvements in farming. He also took 
great interest in the prosperity of the Episcopal Church, and for 
many years was president of the American Bible Society. He 
continued to keep up a correspondence with distinguished men 
both of this country and of Europe. His letters, disdaining the 
selfish, and appealing to the lofty in human life, exhibit the 
power of truth and the beauty of simplicity, together with an 
unshaken faith in Christianity. 

The attractive trait in Jay's character is the constant ascend- 
ency of duty over self-interest. He christianized pohtics and 
diplomacy. His country he loved too well, and served too 
truly, to seek any thing for her by artifice. In public station, 
the bearing which a line of policy might have upon his personal 
prosperity he never once considered. As president of the 
society to manumit slaves, of the American Bible Society, or 



122 Life and Character of yohn yay. 

of Congress, upon the bench, at a foreign court, and at his 
own fireside, he was ahvays the same man. There were in his 
nature none of the attractions or the foibles of brilHancy ; 
nothing striking, indeed, except its completeness and purity. 
He was free from the breaks and fragmentary aspects of what 
the world has agreed to call genius ; free from the faults and 
contradictions of ambitious impulses ; free even from the parti- 
san zeal for his country which would sustain her with equal 
efforts, whether right or wrong. 

Jay was wanting in many of those accessory aids which 
often facilitate the 'elevation of great men. He was never " a 
man of party." In the common acceptation of the word, he 
had no ambition, nor had he enthusiasm. His power lay en- 
tirely in the soundness of his principles and the even tenor of 
his life. He trusted to the judgment of the people, and devel- 
oped in the public mind the trait itself to which he appealed. 
He lived and dressed plainly. He was unaffectedly diffident. 
His opinions were maintained with a modesty and mildness that 
gave a discerning opponent little hope of overcoming or alter- 
ing them. He spent no money in ostentation, but gave much 
in charity. His habits and purposes of life were simple : the 
simplicity of wisdom, indeed, saved hini from becoming the 
dupe of designing men. He put little reliance in professions of 
patriotism, and used to remark in justification, that he himself 
had been reproached for lukewarmness in the cause of Ameri- 
can Independence by men, who in the hour of trial had de- 
serted their country, and sought the protection of her enemies. 
Though naturally irritable, he had by careful training acquired 
a self-control rarely equalled. Distrustful of demagogues, he 
was accustomed to say that, from Absalom down, there had 
never been an honest one. He enjoyed the society of his chil- 
dren and of guests, but was not a great talker. Of the part he 
had borne in public affairs he rarely spoke, and never in the 
company of strangers. 

■ Jay has frequently, in the public mind, been associated and 
compared with Hamilton. This has happened perhaps be- 
cause there was no one else with whom to compare Mr. Jay, 



Life and Character of yoJin Jay. 123 

except him who had no equal. In their characters are points 
of contrast, as well as resemblance. They were alike in ardent 
love of country, no less than in the purity and success with 
which they served it ; alike in the confidence they enjoyed and 
the detraction they encountered ; alike in their views of the 
Constitution, and their efforts to secure its adoption ; alike in 
their support of Washington, and in sharing his trust ; alike, 
moreover, in their opinions as to the administrative policy of the 
government. They were too much alike to be jealous of each 
other, or to be wanting in mutual appreciation and respect. 
Hamilton had the more intellectual. Jay, the more moral power. 
To be a statesman was the object of Hamilton's life : it was an 
incident in the life of Jay. Hamilton could see at a glance 
how a nation was to be governed : Jay could show through a 
lifetime how a man ought lo govern himself. Hamilton lost 
his life in an attempt to vindicate a fame which he deemed 
necessary to his country : Jay would have distrusted the value 
of an influence that required such support. Hamilton saw and 
dreaded the dangers to which our government would be ex- 
posed from the passions of the people : Jay trusted to the 
meliorating influences of Christianity, — hoped where Hamilton 
feared. The government, both in structure and policy, exhibits 
the traces of Hamilton's genius : our diplomacy and our judi- 
ciary retain the impress of the purity and power of Jay. 

There is much in the character of the times in which they 
lived, and in the common objects they sought, which tends to 
associate these two great men together in the public mind. 
But Jay resembled Washington more than he resembled Hamil- 
ton. In an eminent degree Hamilton possessed those traits 
which we usually find in great generals and statesmen, — traits 
suited to develop and marshal the physical energies and re- 
sources of a nation. He, better than any one of his contem- 
poraries, could bring order out of confusion, power out of 
weakness. How he would have succeeded at the head of the 
Revolutionary army, when the object was to conquer more by 
endurance than by concentrated efforts, must be left to conjec- 
ture. Jay understood and appreciated the moral energies and 



1 24 Life and Character of JoJin yay. 

capabilities of the people. He knew that a feeble nation or gov- 
ernment were strong if they were right. He knew that to bring 
men together into communities or nations did not authorize or 
enable them to repeal or modify the laws of their moral nature ; 
that a wrong was none the less such because committed in the 
name of millions ; and that, as nations have no hereafter and 
thus no punishment in another world, retribution must surely 
follow their inicjuities in this. He cared, therefore, more for 
the purity of the people than for the power of the government. 
The comparison is introduced, not to depreciate the charac- 
ter of Hamilton, but to illustrate that of Jay. Washington and 
Jay alike understood, and attempted to give effect to, the prin- 
ciple of the Revolution. They knew that this principle, if fully 
developed, would ultimately make power and right the same 
thing ; that government had no rights but in its duties, po^er 
no security except in its rectitude. When the moral of the 
Revolution is worked out, the character of Hamilton will ap- 
pear like a splendid fragment of some gigantic structure ; that 
of Jay as an edifice less imposing, but perfect in its proportions. 

In 1826 the Fourth of July, being the fiftieth anniversary of 
American Independence, was more generally celebrated than 
usual. A committee of the corporation of the city of New York 
had addressed a letter to Mr. Jay (then more than eighty years 
of age), recognizing his high claim to the respect and gratitude 
of the country, and requesting his presence at the celebration. 
In his letter declining the invitation on account of age and 
increasing infirmities, he said, " I cannot forbear to embrace 
the opportunity offered by the present occasion to express my 
earnest hope that the peace, happiness, and prosperity enjoyed 
by our beloved country, may induce those who direct her 
national councils to recommend a general and public return of 
praise and thanksgiving to Him from whose goodness these 
blessings descend. The most effectual means of securing the 
continuance of our civil and religious liberties is always to 
remember with reverence and gratitude the source from which 
they flow." 



Life and Character of yohn jFay. 125 

Unable in 1828, by reason of his years, to attend the annual 
meeting of the American Bible Society, and acting upon the 
principle that it was not right for him to retain an ofifice 
the duties of which he could not well perform, he resigned 
the presidency, and accompanied his resignation with a liberal 
donation to the society. 

Upon the fourteenth of May, 1829, he had retired to bed in 
his usual health, but in the course of the night was seized with 
palsy. He lingered until the seventeenth, when he died, in the 
eighty-fourth year of his age, and twenty-eight years after his 
retirement from public life. 

He had outlived his enemies, if such he could have had ; 
and there was nothing to jar the feeling of respect for his char- 
acter which pervaded the country. It was said of him in an 
address soon after his death : "A halo of veneration seemed 
to encircle him, as one belonging to another world, though 
lingering among us. When the tidings of his death came to 
us, they were received through the nation, not with sorrow 
or mourning, but with solemn awe, like that with which we 
read the mysterious passage of ancient Scripture, 'And Enoch 
walked with God, and he zaas not; for God took him.' " 



THE 

NECESSITY OF INDIVIDUALITY 
IN CHARACTER. 



... By individuality in character and conduct, I do not 
mean an eccentric disregard of public opinion, a factious and 
futile opposition which chafes under restraint, but that personal 
freedom which follows public sentiment only to the limit of its 
rightful demands. Some have thought that public opinion is 
more powerful here than elsewhere, because popular majorities 
control the affairs of government. Be this as it may, I presume 
it will not be denied that there is with us a tendency to less 
individuality than in some other countries. Strangely enough, it 
happens that here, where the people govern, a man sometimes 
is not allowed to govern himself; that an unseen but every- 
where operating power shapes for him opinions, and compels 
his seeming acquiescence upon questions political, religious, 
social, or economical, which perhaps he has never examined, 
or to which he is far from giving actual assent ; that an outward 
pressure is strong enough to forbid the exercise of his indi- 
vidual judgment ; that, while claiming to be a free people, we 
habitually deny the free expression of individual opinion, or the 
development of individual tastes ; that in a word we are to a 
large extent educated by public opinion, and are expected to 
obey it. Yet those very men and women whose lives have been 
partial or total failures share in creating public opinion : it is 
made up of the average morals and manners of the world. 

A great practical difficulty in maintaining an independent 
individuality of character is found in the influence of society, 
which forms for us our habits before we are aware of them. 



Individuality in Character. 127 

There is no hope of breaking the general influence of fashion. 
Could we only go out of the fashions of the clay, and view 
them independently of the influences and associations that 
make them a part of ourselves, — hke the servant-girl, dressed 
in her finery, and riding in her master's coach, who said her 
happiness would be complete could she only stand upon the 
pavement, and see how she looked riding by, — could we but 
see ourselves as we are viewed by unperverted eyes, there might 
be hope of reformation. Till then, however, fashion, extrava- 
gance, and dissipation will well-nigh always prove irresistible : 
a portion only of society will attain independence of character, 
— and enjoy prosperity without being injured by it. 

It is easy enough in most things to meet the requirements 
of public opinion ; its pressure no doubt brings the conduct of 
many up to a higher and better point than it would otherwise 
reach ; but it tends, at the same time, to prevent one from rising 
above it. In numerous instances it is quite as unfashionable, 
quite as damaging, to be in advance, as to be in the rear, of 
the times. Fashion costs more than taxes, punishes more than 
courts of justice, kills more than war, is more powerful than 
government. It is a despotism which no power can control, no 
extravagance bankrupt, no absurdity weaken. Pass a law de- 
signed to improve the morals of our people, and all the officers 
of the law cannot execute it : let Fashion promulgate a decree 
deforming the person, impairing the health, and in\olving an 
enormous expense, — all the officers of the government, all the 
ridicule of the wits, and the denunciations of press and pulpit, 
would not impede its execution a single day. 

Would we form characters higher and better than the aver- 
age, the motive power of our lives must spring from higher and 
better sources than the prevailing fashions. Every great reform 
has originated with those who have first lifted themselves above 
the folHes and abuses of the day ; and he who seeks to accom- 
plish much must be, as to the wrong influences of society, a life- 
long reformer. Not that he is to mount the platform and exhort 
the multitude, but that he must do what is harder, — live day 
after day by a rule of conduct which sets at nought mere human 
fashions. 



128 Individuality in Character. 

... If the passion for heaping up riches is stronger here 
than in any other country, tiiat pubUc sentiment is to some 
degree responsible which makes money a principal means of 
social distinction. Every man or woman who pays respect to 
wealth without reference to character, is accessory to the grow- 
ing evils which the indulgence of this passion inflicts. Would 
that public opinion were as discriminating in its appreciation of 
the worth of money, without character, as the following incident 
shows a gentleman in Philadelphia to have been. It seems that 
a man in that city, who for years acted upon the theory that 
money, however acquired, could purchase happiness and public 
consideration as merchandise in the market, had managed, by 
various processes which dwarfed or destroyed every manly trait 
of his character, to get together a considerable estate. Not 
long ago he was walking down one of the principal streets, with 
an air that plainly indicated it was not his habit to undervalue 
his own importance, when an admirer pointed him out to a 
bystander, with the remark : " That man, sir, is worth three 
hundred thousand dollars." — " So I understand," was the quiet 
reply, "and that is all he is worth." 

Society, of course, will continue to overrate money, and to 
undervalue character ; but those who would not remain poor, 
yet cannot acquire wealth at such a price as this, must build up 
for themselves an independent individuality of character. The 
attainment of a fortune by proper discipline may, indeed, be 
pronounced an imperative duty. I never knew but two edu- 
cated men who maintained that it was a duty to live destitute 
of property. One was a clergyman, who had the reputation of 
constantly preaching against worldliness and the accumulation 
of property, as a sin. When he died, it was found that he held 
mortgages on half his parish. The other was a lawyer. He 
comforted a widow, from whom he had taken the last dollar her 
husband had left her, by saying that it was a blessing to have 
nothing in this world to keep her thoughts from the next. 

. . . When a man makes an estate in this country, and makes 
nothing else, his failure is of no great public importance, except 
as his example demoralizes those who are not strong enough 



in Character. 129 

to resist it. His influence stimulates a love of money and of 
extravagant expenditure, unsettles habits of quiet and successful 
industry, and often induces, through the power of fashion, many 
of less means to sacrifice real comfort and independence for 
a foolish and heartless display. Against such influences, so 
powerful and so pervading, all who would lead a true life must 
firmly set themselves, until they have formed and fixed an inde- 
pendent character. One method of accomplishing this object 
is to start now with some noble purpose in view ; it may be 
to make comfortable a parent, a child, or dependent ; it may 
be the effort of a wife or mother to reclaim a husband or son 
from vicious habits ; it may be to gain a reputation which one's 
children may respect (one of the most powerful incentives 
to a well-ordered life) ; or, indeed, it may be any thing that 
brings us into unison with that law which has enacted that hap- 
piness can be found only in rightly discharged duty. . . . 



SUCCESS IN LIFE. 

1870. 



The lecture I am about to read to you was prepared at the 
request of the Mercantile Library Association of Portsmouth, 
and delivered before them, several years ago. This association 
was composed of merchants' clerks, mechanics' apprentices, 
young mechanics and traders, and generally of young men 
just starting, or preparing to start, in business. It was written 
at a period of great extravagance, and my purpose was to re- 
mind those who were forming their characters for life, that suc- 
cess or failure is not accidental, but the result of an observance 
or violation of a uniform law ; that if a man would be well, he 
must obey the laws of health ; if respected, he must conform 
to the laws which develop and establish character ; if independ- 
ent, he must observe those laws which control the accumula- 
tion and preservation of property ; and that both property and 
character are subject to the same law, — that of accumulation. 
By this, I meant that a year's income, saved and properly in- 
vested, would become capital to work for its owner the follow- 
ing year, just as the growth of good habits will, which form his 
character. My object was to show my young friends, not how 
to do some great thing, but how, by a succession of what is too 
often regarded as little things, to build up a character and an 
estate. 

I offer you a few desultory remarks upon the causes which 
contribute to success or failure in what should be the purpose 
of life, with such admonitions and encouragements as my own 
observation may have suggested. 



Success ill Life. 131 

And, in the first place, what is success? It is not wealth 
alone ; for sometimes rich men are only great failures. It is 
not power alone ; for that not unfrequently ruins its possessor. 
It is not social position ; for that is often obtained without 
merit, or lost without fault. Success in life is the harmonious 
development and mature growth of a manly character, the 
fruits of which are independence, influence, and position. 
Being what we were designed to be, and doing what we ought 
to do, — this is success. 

It has often been said that we profit little by the experience 
of others, — a remark which, to be true, means that it is one 
thing to have a principle explained to us, and quite another to 
regulate our lives by it. Very much the same idea is contained 
in the proverb, that purchased experience is the best, provided 
it be not bought too dearly. Both sayings proceed upon the 
difference between theory and practice. A lawyer may read 
abstract principles of law, yet not know how to try a case to 
the jury ; or a physician may study the causes of disease and 
its remedy, and yet know not how to cure his patient. It is 
one thing for a young merchant to understand political econo- 
my and the laws of trade, and quite a different thing for him to 
make a fortune ; or, for a mechanic to comprehend natural 
philosophy, and quite a different thing to apply it to practical 
results. \\'e may frequently hear men explain the reasons of 
their failure or success, without avoiding the one, or securing 
the other. The real difificuky in profiting by the experience of 
others is, that, whatever may be our theory, it is our passions 
that are apt to sway us when we come to act. To those who 
are starting in life, it becomes a momentous question, whether 
impulse or fixed principles shall shape their conduct, and form 
their characters. 

The law of success is as universal and as irresistible as that 
which holds the planets in their orbits. There is no miracle, 
no good luck, no chance ; but whether merchant, professional 
man, or laborer, each individual succeeds just in proportion as 
he learns and obeys this law. Nor will it be suspended or 
modified that we may succeed where others have failed. In 



132 Success in Life. 

this country, inasmuch as the people have the control of the 
law-making power, we sometimes fall into the delusion of think- 
ing that we can alter principles ; but the law we are now con- 
sidering, no legislative authority has made, or can repeal. To 
know, love, and obey it, is happiness and success. He who 
cannot for future good control present impulse, who gratifies 
present inclination at the expense of future peace, and whose 
life is shaped by passion, instead of principle, will surely fail. 
So, too, will he fail, either in the means or end, who aims to 
succeed by the injury of others. 

But it is not strange that this law should be unknown, neg- 
lected, and disregarded. How full is this world of beauty, 
how full of noble men and women ! and yet how many people 
go through life seeing no beauty around them ! how many live 
among those of the highest and best character, yet know noth- 
ing of them ! When such people are blind to what Providence 
has thus provided for their happiness, see not beauty and 
grandeur in the character of the noble men and women who 
surround them, how can they comprehend an unseen law? 
How can a sordid, ignorant man be brought to feel that God's 
plan of making him happy is better than that suggested by his 
own passions ? 

It does not lie within the range of my plan to undertake to 
define or explain this law, except by illustrations showing its 
power. My purpose is to refer to some only of those causes 
which I have observed contribute to success or failure in what 
should be the object of life. 

The world really wants, and is ready to pay, those men who 
can and will serve it ; and will pay them just what their services 
are worth, — no more. Whatever the law-makers may under- 
take to do with regard to the laws of labor, men cannot receive 
what they do not earn. Every sound plan involves the inquiry, 
not what is most agreeable to you, but how best can you serve 
the public. You cannot rightfully draw more from the commu- 
nity than you give to it, any more than you can draw from the 
bank a larger amount than you have deposited. 

The foundation of success, indeed of all rational enjoyment, 



Success hi Life. 133 

is work regulated by duty. It is the law of our nature tliat we 
should find our happiness in the fulfilment of our duties, and 
no success can be attained otherwise. Duty is only another 
name for the means of happiness. We should early learn to 
love what we hav'e to do, and go about our occupation, as to 
our assigned post of duty, deriving our enjoyment from the 
consciousness that we are honestly and honorably employed. 
What if our task be severe? if we go to it in the morning, con- 
scious that we are at peace with the world, that we have 
wronged no one, that our plans are in harmony with the laws 
of nature and the will of God, we shall find an enjoyment 
which the idler, the seeker after pleasure, and he who wastes 
the earnings of others, can never know. Do we bring from it 
a wearied body and aching limbs, they are but preparations for 
" tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." Rightly regarded, 
then, a life of labor is not a life of drudgery, but a season of 
discipline, needed to preserve our health, develop and mature 
our powers, and to give us the feeling that we are doing some- 
thing to carry forward the great interests of society, — needed, 
in a word, to make us happy. 

We often repine at that discipline which saves us, and seek 
that ease which would ruin us. Some men are so constituted, 
that prosperity makes them arrogant and frivolous, rather than 
thankful and modest. Others who succeed, and have devel- 
oped estimable characters, are unable to tell how much what 
they call their misfortunes have aided, or their good luck has 
obstructed them. Were we given the power of ascertaining 
exactly the agency which has occasioned what of success or 
failure may have varied the lives of any given number of indi- 
viduals, I believe many would be surprised to find how much 
the so-called obstacles had strengthened, and the so-called 
helps weakened them. Where another is allowed to bear our 
burdens, we lose the strength which meeting them, and carrying 
them from day to day, would have given us ; and our ability to 
compete with others in the practical affairs of life is correspond- 
ingly reduced. When we come to be as ready to do our duty 
as we are to claim our rights, we shall have started upon the 
true road to success. 



134 Success in Life. 

It is no uncommon thing to see a young man toiling to aid a 
mother, or sister, or a family ; practising self-denial that those 
who are dear to him may live in comfort. Some people look 
upon such a young man as unfortunate, — so fettered, that he 
cannot succeed in life. It were much better to imitate than to 
pity him. True, he works hard and denies himself indulgences ; 
but he is so training himself that, when he comes to the serious 
work of life, he will outstrip those who have never encountered 
burdens such as these, or, if they have, who lacked the courage 
to make the attempt to bear them. Have no fear for the suc- 
cess of a young man who is manly enough to do what he ought. 
Reserve your solicitude for him who is called the child of for- 
tune. Watch him who has had much done for him, and see 
what he does for himself. 

The repugnance to lal)or which so frequently causes failure 
is due not more to indolence than to an ignorance of the fact 
that labor is really a blessing, and that it is as much a source of 
enjoyment as of wealth. How should a young man untrained 
to work discover blessings in a life of that toil which he sees so 
many attempting to avoid? He sees men laboring to obtain 
the means of exemption from labor, instead of seeking enjoy- 
ment in the daily work and routine of life : why should he not 
act upon the delusion that, if he can get money without work, 
he secures happiness by avoiding toil? Many a young man has 
advanced some way on the journey of life before discovering 
that no one enjoys the real blessings of wealth and position 
without toiling for and earning them. Few greater obstacles 
lie in the road to success than the belief that work is an evil, or 
that it ought to be avoided. There is a satisfaction in the reflec- 
tion that a day's work has been honestly and faithfully done, 
which the idler never knows. Multiply such a day's work by a 
lifetime, the product is independence and happiness. It is the 
misfortune of many that they get half way through life before 
they realize that their great need is something to do, somebody 
to work for, some occupation, which, while it fulfils their duty 
to society, gratifies their affections by benefiting those who are 
dear to them. It is not uncommon to hear expressions of sur- 



Success in Life. 135 

prise, that a man of sufificient means to live in comfort without 
work should continue in those habits of industry by which he 
has earned his independence. He has learned, what others 
ought to learn, that his best enjoyment is found in applying 
himself to useful occupation, and that there is no greater de- 
lusion than supposing that happiness will begin only when one 
has saved enough to live without work. 

Notwithstanding there are so many dissipated men and idlers 
in our cities, so many who spend their money before they earn 
it, and that extravagance is so widespread, yet the improving 
civilization of our country is bringing us more and more to 
appreciate the dignity and blessings of labor. Nowhere else 
are its rewards so sure and so high, or the working-man in all 
departments so much respected. 

We are in the habit of regarding England as a rich country, 
and so she is, — rich in her past accumulations ; but wealth is 
accumulating faster in this country than in F^ngland, because 
here lal)or is free, but crippled there. They appear in Great 
Britain to be trying the experiment to determine how few may 
hold the wealth of the kingdom, and still preserve peace and 
order. Here opportunity and inducement are held out to 
all alike to gain an independence. Although there are many 
marked and honorable exceptions, yet most of the English 
gentry, and those who live upon inherited wealth, use their 
means so as to lessen what would otherwise increase the prod- 
uct of labor. Having little to do but to spend money, and 
waste time, they often anticipate their incomes in those ex- 
penditures which minister to personal gratification, and tend 
to diminish the common stock of wealth. It costs England 
enormously to support her wealthy classes. The system of 
entailed estates not only withholds many men from productive 
pursuits, but inclines them to divert considerable portions of 
the labor of others from those channels of industry where it 
might add to the wealth and comfort of all. Nay more, this 
very policy, by placing the few al)ove labor and the many below 
hope, im[)airs the energies, and lessens the growth, of the whole 
nation. 



136 Success in Life. 

We had very much the same system in this country until 
slavery was abolished. If the increased productive capacity 
of labor consequent upon the abolition of slavery c^uld take 
the shape of a sinking-fund in money, it would pay the national 
debt, principal and interest, long before the present race of 
croakers will have died out. The result of the war has been to 
elevate the dignity of labor, and increase its power. Although 
we have a national debt so large, that even now many timid 
men believe it will not be paid, people of means and character 
are coming to our shores in numbers sufficient to populate a 
State every year. Even England, who caused it to be pro- 
claimed that our Union must be dissolved, because she would 
not loan us a dollar to preserve it, sent us this last year nearly a 
thousand Englishmen a week to help us pay the expense, and 
share in the blessings resulting from the war. 

I have invited your attention to the practical working of 
the different systems of labor in this country and in England, 
because nations illustrate the truth, as well as individuals, that 
success is regulated by an unswerving law. Free labor is 
the blessing and safeguard of nations as of individuals. The 
people are quiet and prosperous where labor is free, just as 
we rarely find an industrious man to be a bad man. Being 
engaged in applying abstract principles to practical results, his 
habits grow into the observance of laws ; while, with few excep- 
tions, it is the idle and the dissipated who commit crimes. Nor 
is it easy to find an honest, hard-working man, in any walk of 
life, who is unhappy. In my experience and observation, which 
have been somewhat long, if not extensive, I have rarely come 
across an honest workingman who was wanting in enjo3"ment. 
From the nature of things, it must be that he who has nothing 
to do finds little to enjoy. Only a low and sensual gratification 
springs from the union of wealth and indolence. The employ- 
ment of our powers, and the fulfilment of our duties, I cannot 
too often repeat, in that work which is as needful for our enjoy- 
ment as for our subsistence, alone bring us the happiness suited 
to rational and accountable beings. 

An indispensable requisite to success is a well-digested plan 



Success in Life. 137 

of life, always kept iir view, and perseveringly followed. Such a 
plan will be simple, if true. However feeble a man may appear 
to be, he is as strong as the principle he lives by. A succession 
of comparatively unimportant, and at first unobserved, acts and 
incidents, persevered in while another, neglects them, gradually 
builds up a high character. They gain, like money at compound 
interest. Make your plan, and adhere to it. Review the results 
of each day ; see whither you are tending, and what sort of a 
future the present is preparing for you. To-day's work, re- 
member, and not to-day's dreams, is making your future. We 
notice a great difference in the positions of men whom we daily 
meet ; but it rarely occurs to us to seek out the cause. Could 
we read the record of their lives, we should discover less diver- 
sity in their natural endowments than in the plans which they 
have adopted, or the habits they have contracted. Learning, 
property, position, the ability to succeed in the world by making 
yourself useful or necessary to it, all are attained by the same 
process. To a superficial observer, there is likely to be little 
difference in the careers of two young men who slart together 
with like capacities, like opportunities, and like occupations, 
one of whom indulges in small, unnecessary expenses, and 
slight deviations from the true line, while the other upon prin- 
ciple avoids them. But follow out this trifling difference, and 
you will find one at last possessed of property, influence, and 
reputation ; the other, not. The diversity in habits has pro- 
duced characters widely dissimilar, each with its inevitable 
result of success or failure. 

Habits of punctuality will accomplish great things in a life- 
time. Never shrink from, but gladly meet as it arises, each 
valid claim upon your attention. When I came to the bar, 
often after a hard day's work have I walked a considerable 
distance in order to pay over to a client a small sum of money 
I had collected. This to him, perhaps, was of no importance ; 
but to me the habit of performing at once a professional duty 
became of great value. 

I need hardly say that there can be no success without integ- 
rity, — not a conventional integrity which keeps within the law, 



138 Success in Life. 

but an integrity of the heart, which inquires not what may, but 
what ought to be done. The young man who does not feel 
that integrity is indispensable to success, that truth and purity 
alone will stand, and that rightly discharged duty is the only 
thing which in the end can satisfy him, will surely fail. 

Quick and generous sympathy with the interests of society 
helps a man to succeed. The true minister, doctor, or lawyer 
looks upon his profession as the post of duty. He ought not 
to be indifferent to his compensation ; but he does not deserve 
it, he is unfit to be trusted with the souls, the hves, or the rights, 
of the public, if he be not more intent upon doing well his 
work than upon his pay. So of every calling. Act upon the 
unfaltering conviction that you cannot help yourself, except as 
you serve the public, and you have taken a direct step towards 
success. And by all means keep alive, and nourish into vigorous 
activity, a sympathy with the cause of humanity. Thousands 
are starving, literally starving, for the want of that nourishment 
which grows out of a kindly sympathy with their neighbors and 
townsmen. 

Make your home in a community where an educated clergy- 
man of scholarly habits and refined taste is settled and cheer- 
fully sustained. Next to the influence of the home in which 
you have been reared will be that of such a man upon your 
character and success. And be as punctual in your attendance 
upon his preaching as (if you are to be a man) you will be in 
paying your part of his salary. He may not suffer if you don't 
help him ; hwl you will. 

Many failures are attributable to a lack of education or train- 
ing. By this I do not mean that education alone which we 
obtain as schoolboys, but a training and discipline gained in the 
school of practical life, a worldly wisdom which comes of a rigid 
adherence to self-imposed rules. It is a matter of every-day 
observation that men may be full of learning, and yet have no 
education that fits them for the practical duties of life. 

Early marriage conduces largely to success, lliis is a step 
which few of you are likely to neglect ; yet many, especially in 
our large cities, make a failure of life by postponing marriage 



Success in Life. 139 

until they shall have made an estate. This is as unwise as for 
a man to postpone his enjoyment of life until he shall have 
made money enough to live without work. Most young men 
need a wife to aid them in making an estate, to check the 
growth of selfishness, and to enlarge the range of their sympa- 
thies. The very process by which a youthful couple attain to 
an estate and a social position is the source of happiness, is 
in itself success : it gives character to their lives, and exerts a 
healthful influence upon their children and the community. The 
stability and wealth of New England, and the influence she 
has exercised upon the whole country, is to a great extent 
attributable to the usage, that so long prevailed, of young people 
with little or no means uniting to make a home, and earn a 
position, — a usage which we cannot afford to give up, but 
which we are losing, I fear, as wealth and love of show 
increase. 

The choice of an employment, always important, sometimes 
becomes a decisive step in life. Though we are fast getting 
rid of the delusion, yet even now too many choose an occu- 
pation more with a view to its supposed respectability than 
because of their fitness for it. They soon learn that it is what 
a man is, and not his calling, which gives him his real posi- 
tion. And then, too, we meet with young men who believe 
success is to be won by genius, and they grow discouraged 
because they feel no such power. They should understand that 
what is termed genius not unfrequently is but a discernment 
and energy which enable one to work diligently in the right 
direction. They want will and perseverance : having, however, 
no determined purpose, they fall into vacillating habits, and 
accomplish little or nothing. We find them engaged, not in 
meeting the duties of to-day, but in an attempt at correcting 
the mistakes, or atoning for the neglect, of yesterday. Indeed, 
there are those who labor like a water-wheel whose turning is 
retarded by back-water, — men who fail because their efforts are 
not in the right direction. . . . 

If we would succeed, we must not stand hesitating till we are 
told to do some great thing, but begin now. and do the first 



140 Success in Life. 

thing that offers, however small, as it ought to be done. Do 
not begin with a conviction that it is necessary you should be 
rich. The source of many a failure is to be found in the delu- 
sive idea that a large estate is a necessity, and that it may be 
made in a hurry. I do not undervalue the advantages of 
wealth ; but I insist upon your forming the habits which may 
acquire it. An estate suddenly got by what is called a lucky 
speculation is by no means an unmixed good. The possession 
of property, I cannot too often repeat, that comes as an inci- 
dent to an industrious life, is well enough \ but it is not worth 
half so much as that discipline and well-ordered conduct of 
life which is necessary to obtain it. Do not forget, that as a 
general rule wealth, to be a blessing, should be the result of 
a life of regulated industry. I advise you, then, to be content 
with what you can honestly earn, and to take good care of it. 

The accumulation of a fortune, so far from being a success, 
is a failure when the process dwarfs the man, or hardens the 
heart. When we respect a wealthy man, it is not for his estate, 
but for the power and self-control which have accumulated it, 
and for the rightful manner in which he is using it. 

We should better succeed in the real object of life were we 
to learn rather to enjoy what we have than to repine for what 
we have not. About fifty years ago Mr. G., then one of the 
richest men in New England, embarked perhaps the fifteenth 
part of his estate in manufacturing enterprises which for some 
years turned out to be losing ventures, simply because men (as 
is often the case in business) engaged in them without special 
training. The sum of Mr. G.'s losses may possibly have 
amounted to a year's income, — a result which greatly dis- 
tressed him. Now, it is easy for us to see that it was folly in an 
old man, as he was, to be so troubled at the loss of a small part 
of his estate ; yet this is no uncommon case. The event so 
preyed upon his mind, that he spent a long time in making out 
a careful interest account with the investment, showing a loss of 
a hundred and ten thousand dollars, and sent it with a doleful 
letter to his friend and correspondent, Robert Pulserford, a Lon- 
don banker. This gentleman spent half a day in an examina- 



Success in Life. 141 

tion of the account, and then wrote a reply as follows (I had 
the anecdote from the clerk, who saw the letter written, and 
who, as clerk, copied it in the London banker's office) : — 

London, February 8, 1827. 
Dear G., — I have attentively examined your letter, and detailed ac- 
count of your losses in the manufacturing business. My advice to you is, 
to think of what you have, and not of what you have lost. 

Yours truly, 

R. PULSERFORD. 

Now there are not a few, who, while perceiving that this was 
good advice to Mr. G., will themselves fail to profit by it. Mr. 
G. was a very estimable gentleman ; but he overrated the value 
of money. I have related this incident to illustrate what I 
mean by saying that one may make an estate without securing 
success. An anxiety to accumulate money may render the 
successful accomplishment of that object in effect a failure. 

Another incident, which occurred a few years earlier, will 
show you what I intend you shall understand by the power of 
character. Not that I would for a moment intimate that 
character and fortune were not united in Mr. G. : they were. 
But my object now is to impress upon you by illustration, that 
as one may possess an estate which brings him more anxiety 
than comfort, so another may have a commanding character, 
and achieve success, without an estate. 

In 1809, when there was more wood and less money in the 
vicinity of Cambridge than at the present day, a farmer in 
straitened circumstances, who lived about six miles from the 
colleges, had a son who early manifested a strong desire to be 
educated at Harvard. The father, at the proper time, arranged 
to pay his son's expenses by cutting and hauling wood for the 
college. One day, the son, as he was coming with his class 
from the recitation-room, discovered his father at work, throw- 
ing off a load of wood. " Come, boys," said he, " follow me, 
and I'll introduce you to the best father in the Common- 
wealth ; " and the class forthwith followed him in a body. 
"This, classmates," continued the student proudly, "is my 



142 Success in Life. 

father, who does this work so that I can have the same advan- 
tages as you." The class shook hands with the honest farmer, 
and, after helping him unload his wood, they made him come 
and dine with them. After dinner, they escorted him to his 
sled, and, as he started on his way home, the class gave him 
three hearty cheers. 

Now, there is nothing remarkable in a New England farmer 
working hard to give his son a good education. Many a father 
has in this way made a hero of himself, and opened to his son 
the road to success. But it is interesting to note that a whole 
class of college-boys at once recognized the claims of a noble 
man to their enthusiastic admiration. Such a reception and 
escort they would not have given to a merely wealthy parent 
coming in his coach to pay his son's college-bills. 
• Young men at the outset of their work often grow impatient 
to obtain the control of capital : seeing that money is an 
element of power, they naturally suppose that had they the 
means, they could surely command success. No doubt some 
young men have been retarded by the lack of means which 
they were fitted to employ to advantage ; but others have been 
injured by being permitted to control money before they have 
been trained to its use. As a general proposition, capital can- 
not long be kept from him who knows how to use it, nor long 
held by him who lacks this knowledge. 

Nor should I omit to point out a cause of failure in the mis- 
take young business-men fall into, when they suppose that in 
the outset a high social position is necessary to success ; or 
that such position can be purchased by borrowed money ; or 
that any standing worth the having in society can be reached 
without earning it. It must be owing to the accumulation of 
wealth, and the increased expense of living, that so many 
young business-men not only postpone too long the establish- 
ment of a home of their own, but begin housekeeping upon a 
scale which endangers their ultimate success. Here and there 
are to be seen a couple, who, in imitation of the old New 
England fashion, are content in a frugal manner to begin life, 
with the determination of earning a fortune before they set 



Success in Life. 143 

about spending it, and to make themselves worthy of a social 
position before they claim it. Such a sight commands the 
respect of thoughtful and sensible men. 

My young friends, be too proud and too honest to tell a 
falsehood by your manner of living. Live within your means, 
and you will secure a respect which another's money can never 
procure for you. 

Economy, hateful as the word sounds in some ears, and 
unfashionable as it is in some quarters, is absolutely necessary 
to success. Economy is a duty, though a great many disregard 
it. Money is not to be hoarded ; but, when used, it should 
leave some token, even if momentary, that it has been judi- 
ciously expended. But it must not go for any purposes that 
do not advance the great plan of life. A young business-man 
can spare neither the capital nor the working-force necessary 
for sideway indulgences. 

I hardly know how to account for the fact that the world 
judges with so much more severity the man who saves money 
than the spendthrift or the swindler ; that it forgives so much 
more readily one who has stolen by a breach of trust a hundred 
thousand dollars of other people's money than him, who, by 
cheating himself out of the pleasures and comforts of life, has 
managed to lay up that sum. The latter's only offence is, that 
he has not wasted a portion of the world's labor on his own 
selfish gratification. Let me relate an anecdote which illus- 
trates what a miser, detestable as may be his habits, can accom- 
plish by persistent adherence to a principle. 

In one of the smaller cities of France, towards the close of 
the last century, there died at an advanced age, leaving a large 
estate, a man who for more than fifty years had been known 
and despised as a miser. For a long period the city had suf- 
fered from the lack of good water. During his youth the in- 
convenience had become so great, that the citizens held public 
meetings, with a view to the city's taking measures, in its cor- 
porate capacity, for bringing water from a lake about a dozen 
miles distant. After much discussion, an estimate was had of 
the expense ; but it proved so large, that the people reluctantly 



144 Success in Life. 

concluded to abandon the enteq^rise as impossible for them to 
undertake. While serving his apprenticeship at blacksmithing, 
he had attended the meetings, and grown much interested in 
the subject. When the city had abandoned the project, it 
occurred to him that he himself might furnish the means of 
constructing the aqueduct. By degrees this idea took posses- 
sion of his mind, and soon after he became of age he deter- 
mined to accomplish this undertaking. Giving up his purpose 
of marrying, he devoted his life to this single object. He 
worked diligently, lived upon a few cents a day, and put his 
earnings at interest. To make his plan effective, he applied 
himself early to money-letting, and learned how to make good 
investments. By improved workmanship, and diligence in his 
trade, spending nothing, but adding to his means at high rates 
of interest, the blacksmith gained in wealth, and long before 
he was called old, but not till after he was called a miser, he 
became the richest man in the city. As years and money 
increased, he grew more and more penurious ; and yet, though 
he lived and dressed so meanly as to be avoided and despised, 
he appeared always cheerful and happy. He died alone, in an 
unfurnished hovel, at nearly the age of ninety years, leaving an 
immense estate. His will set forth the object of his life of 
accumulation and self-denial, — to furnish every inhabitant of 
the city with an abundant supply of good water free of expense. 
His property, which was ample for the purpose, he had vested 
in trustees charged with the duty of bringing in the distant and 
long-coveted lake to his native city, and keeping the works in 
repair, free of cost to the citizens. 

When the people gave up this enterprise as too expensive 
for their united means, had this half-educated blacksmith an- 
nounced to them his purpose of accomplishing what they dared 
not undertake, who would have heeded him? How many of 
those who sneered at the miser while working out his great 
plan, and happy in his employment, had any conception of the 
force of that principle, an adherence to which was giving that 
ignorant and insignificant man a power greater than that of the 
whole city? 



Success in Life. 145 

A few years ago, Mr. K., an able and successful lawyer, died 
at Concord, at an advanced age, leaving what is considered in 
New Hampshire a large fortune. After making a moderate 
provision for his relatives, he gave the bulk of his property, 
amounting to about two hundred thousand dollars, to the New 
Hampshire Asylum for the Insane. Always economical, he 
had for the last forty years been penurious, denying himself 
many of what are esteemed the comforts of life. In other 
respects he was a learned, cultivated, and exemplary man. 
He gave up his practice at the bar before reaching middle age, 
and, by perseveringly acting upon a carefully-considered plan, 
he succeeded in accumulating his handsome estate. I doubt if 
any swindler now in the State Prison has been so censured for 
his crime as was Mr. K., in his lifetime, for the self-denial which 
enabled him to devote two hundred thousand dollars to a most 
worthy charity. 

I have told you what these men accomplished, not to com- 
mend the conduct of either as deserving imitation, but to show 
what power there is in a plan of life persistently carried out. 

x'\ habit which often exerts a greater influence upon success 
than is generally supposed is cheerfulness, or looking upon the 
bright side of life ; and charity, or, more accurately speaking, 
justice, which sees the good points of people quicker and more 
clearly than it discovers their faults. Why is it that we, where 
so many of our days are happy and prosperous, are more prone 
to repine at what we suffer than to be grateful for what we 
enjoy? Why is it, when there is so much that is good in those 
about us, and their faults are so few, that we have a keen eye 
for their defects alone? This is not only unjust to others, but 
injurious to ourselves. The view is not true either of the world, 
or of those whom we meet from day to day ; and false opinions 
always obstruct success. Besides, life's enjoyments are largely 
made up of a succession of what appear to be unimportant 
incidents. If, in our intercourse with the world, we have a 
quicker eye for the faults than for the excellences of those 
whom we are constantly meeting, we not only hazard our suc- 
cess, but greatly abridge our happiness. 



146 Success in Life. 

Finally, success largely depends upon our heeding that law, 
as well applicable to what we call secular affairs as to spiritual 
growth, announced in the saying of Jesus, " He that findeth his 
life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall 
find it;" which means that the sordid will fail, while he who 
to the selfish appears to be throwing away the enjoyments of 
life in meeting and fulfilling his duties shall, whatever may 
seem the sacrifice, find life's highest happiness. 

I felt that I could not better attain the object you had in 
inviting me to address you, than by reminding you that the 
danger of the day is in a growing aversion to work and a love 
of extravagance. For this reason I have attempted to impress 
on the minds of those just entering upon the duties of life the 
truth that there is a law of success and failure as universal as 
that of gravitation. And, in your efforts to discover and li\'e by 
this law, — 

" . . May you better reck the rede 
Than ever did th' adviser." 



REMARKS 

ON PRESENTING RESOLUTIONS OF THE ROCK- 
INGHAM BAR, UPON THE DEATH OF 
JOHN PORTER, ESQUIRE/ 



May it please your Honor, — In the rapid flight of time we 
have reached the period for the convening of this court. The 
preHminaries have been gone through with, and the business of 
the term has been commenced ; yet we miss the venerable 
form and the measured step of the president of this bar. Who 
among us can recollect a time or term when he did not asso- 
ciate our distinguished brother and his presence with the Rock- 
ingham courts? 

Mr. John Porter, with one exception the oldest counsellor of 
the bar, died suddenly, at his residence in Derry, on the fourth 
of December last. During the day, and up to within a few 
minutes of his death, he was engaged in his usual professional 
avocations, thus beautifully ending a long and well-spent life 
without decay of mind, or pain of body, and fulfilling his well- 
known wish, not to outlive his usefulness. 

He was born in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, on the twenty- 
sixth of February, 1776, — a few months before the promulga- 
tion of the Declaration of Independence. His father soon after 
removed to Lebanon in this State. Mr. Porter graduated at 
Dartmouth College in 1803, and studied his profession with the 
late Aaron Hutchinson ; and more than half a century ago set- 

' Mr. Hackelt presented these resolutions in behalf of the Bar, February 24th, 1858, 
at the trial term of the Supreme Judicial Court held at Exeter, the Honorable Samuel 
Dana Bell (afterward chief justice) upon the bench. This instance of the felicity with 
which he performed a not infrequent duly is selected, not only because of the esteem in 
which the Bar held their venerable president, but for the circumstance that the speaker 
mentions the names of early contemporaries in the profession, who had at that date passed 
away. 



148 Remarks on the Death of 

tied in Derry, where he continued to reside, uninterruptedly 
engaged, with marked ability and success, in the practice of the 
law until his death. He soon acquired, and ever afterwards 
held, a high rank at the bar at a time when it contained lawyers 
who would have conferred distinction upon any bar in this or 
in any other country. His fidelity, patience, and industry, his 
learning and high-bred courtesy, his effective preparation for 
the duties of court, and his quiet waiting on its routine, are 
known to all who are acquainted with the administration of 
justice in this county. 

Not only was he for many years among the first at the bar in 
this county and this State, but for many sessions he was among 
the first and soundest of our legislators. The town in which 
he resided often conferred honor upon itself and the State by 
electing him to the House of Representatives. A cjuarter of a 
century ago the State secured his services, in conjunction with 
those of other distinguished jurists, in the revision of our stat- 
utes. It would be difficult to name one who, during the last 
half-century, had so frequently occupied a seat in the popular 
branch of our State government, or who had exerted a greater 
or better influence in giving shape to our statutes, and character 
to our general legislation. Neither at the bar nor in the Legis- 
lature did he seek opportunities for mere display ; l)ut in both 
positions he was always found equal to what the occasion de- 
manded. 

The last time I heard him address the court he delivered in 
this room his beautiful and appropriate speech upon the life 
and character of our late brother Tilton. The bar had delayed 
offering to the court the resolutions which they had adopted, 
with a view to Mr. Porter's participating in the proceedings. 
When he arrived in town he readily undertook the part assigned 
to him, and some who hear me will recollect how admirably he 
performed it. 

With what fearful rapidity such occasions as these are suc- 
ceeding each other ! Where now are the men who gave charac- 
ter to the Rockingham bar when your Honor and myself were 
admitted to it? Mason, Smith, Sullivan, Bartlett, Woodbury, 



yohn Porter, Esq. 149 

Cutts, Haven, French, Butler, Plumer, Cushman, Tilton, Thorn? 
— all gone ; and now Porter, after a long and honored life, is 
added to the list. 

It is fitting that such occasions as this should be marked at 
least by a momentary cessation of those contests incident to 
the profession in which we are spending our lives ; that we 
should call to mind our brethren who have gone before us ; 
and, if their eminence is beyond our reach, that we should 
resolve the more sedulously to imitate their virtues, and en- 
deavor to realize the rapidity with which we are hurrying after 
them. 



INDEX OF NAMES. 



INDEX OF NAMES. 



Adams, 30, 44, 92, 113, 119, 120. 
Addison, 82. 
Allen, 7, 71. 
Appleton, 28. 
Atherton, 36. 

Badger, 13, 17. 

Balch, 6. 

Barnard, 4. 

Bartlett, 19, 20, 21, 22, 30, 35, 87, 

90, 9 r, 103, 1 48. 
Barton, 34. 
Bayard, in. 
Bean, 17. 
Bell, 36, 69, 147. 
Bellemie, 4 
Blair, 16. 
Bonaparte, 121. 
Boswell, 93. 
Bradbury, 8, 35. 
Brewster, 21, 42, 93. 
Brown, 30. 
Browne, 113. 
Burleigh, 17. 
Burr, 117. 
Butler, 149. 

Campbell, 93. 
Carlton, i. 
Carteret, 5. 
Chase, 37, 88. 



Chaunccy, 30. 
Childs, 30. 
Choate, 64. 
Christie, 57, 69. 
Cilley, 35. 
Claggett, 22, 30, 35. 
Clark, 30. 

Coe, 20, 21, 31, 32, 33. 
Coggswell, 17. 
Coues, 28, 30. 
Crosby, 16, 17. 
Currier, 22. 
Cushman, 35, 149. 
Cutter, 22, 30. 
Cutting, 22. 

Cutts, 19, 22, 28, 30, 35, 36, 91, 
149. 

Dana, 147. 

De Normandie, 87, 95. 

Durkee, 30. 

Dwight, 60. 

Dyer, i. 

Eastman, 14, 17. 
Ellsworth, 119. 
Elwyn, 22, 39. 

Fields, 26. 
Folsom, II. 
Franklin, 113. 



154 



Index of Names. 



French, 15, 17, 149. 
Frink, 102. 
Froude, 3. 

Gale, 12. 
Oilman, 11. 
Goddard, 78. 
Goldsmith, 77. 
Goodrich, 30, 43. 
Goodwin, 44, ^6, 60. 
Graham, 4. 
Grant, 51. 
Greeley, 17. 
Grenville, i iS. 

HACKErT : — 
Allen, I, S, 9, 10, 12, 13. 
Asa, 8. 
Betsey, 8. 
Betty, 8. 
Bradbury, 8. 
Clara Coues, 28. 
Charles, 4, 8. 
Charles Alfred, i, 13. 
Charles Parker, 28. 
Cuthbert, 3. 
Daniel, 8. 
David, 3. 
Dorothy, 7, 8. 
Ebenezer, 6, 8. 
Eliza Ann, i. 
Ellen Louisa, 28. 
Ephraim, 6, 7, 8. 
Ezra, 8. 

Frank Warren, 28. 
George Washington, i. 
Hannah, 6. 
Hezekiah, 8. 
Hiram Stephen, i. 
Horatio Balch, 6. 
Jabez, 5. 
Jeremiah, 8. 
Jeremiah Carlton, i. 
Jeremiah Mason, i. 
John, 3, 5, 6. 



Hackett : — 

Judah, 6. 

Katharine, 6. 

I.uther Allen, i. 

Marian, 4. 

Marianna, 28. 

Mary, 8, 10. 

Mary Jane, i. 

Mary Young, i, 10. 

Miriam, 8. 

Nancy Young, i. 

Patty, 8. 

Peter, 4. 

Polly, 8. 

Richard, 5. 

Sarah, 4, 5, 6, 8. 

Susan, 8. 

Thomas, 3. 

Wallace, 60. 

Will, 4, 5. 

William, 4, 5, 6. 

William Henry, 28. 
Hadley, 24. 

Halliburton, 29, 30, 41, 42, 93. 
Halket, 2, 3. 

Hamilton, 114, 122, 123, 124. 
Hanson, 4. 
Harcourt, 2. 
Hatch, 57, 100. 
Hatfield, 6. 

Haven, 19, 22, 23, 27, 28, 91, 149. 
Hill, 34. 
Hillard, 26. 
Hutchinson, 147. 

Jarves, 7. 
Jay, 93, 109. 
Jenness, 89, 90. 
Johnson, 93. 

Keating, 2. 
Keyes, 37. 
Kimball, 60. 
Knowles, 39. 



Index of Names. 



155 



'Leighton, i. 
Leslie, 4. 
Lincoln, 51. 
Livingston, rii, 112. 
Lockhart, 77. 
Long, 22, 30. 
Lord, ZT- 
Lower, 2. 

McFarland, 15, 17. 

Mack, 15. 

Madison, 114. 

Magoun, 30. 

Mann, 69. 

March, 66. 

Marshall, 120. 

Mason, i, 19, 22, 23, 26, 27, 35, 36, 

91, 103, 148. 
Miller, 30. 
Moody, 17, 18. 
Moore, 69. 
Montrose, 4. 
Morgan, 28. 
Morrill, 8, 58. 

Nutter, 28. 

Odell, 22, 30, 54. 
Odiorne, 22, 65. 

Palfrey, 23. 

Patrick, 8, 9. 

Parent, 68. 

Parker, 28, 35, 69, 89, 94. 

Peabody, 23. 

Peaslee, 17. 

Penhallow, 21. 

Pepperell, 39. 

Perkins, 19, 87. 

Phillips, II. 

Pickering, 28, 30, 87, 91. 

Pierce, 22, 28, 91. 

Plumer, 27, 149. 

Porter, 147. 

Pulserford, 140, 141. 



Randolph, 20. 
Rice, 53. 
Ring, 7. 
Robinson, 8. 
Rundlet, 30. 

Savage, 5. 

Scott, 77. 

Scribner, 90. 

Seavey, 65. 

Shakspeare, 4. 

Small, 104. 

Smith, 17, 21, 99, 103, 148. 

Spry, 39- 

Stanton, 38. 

Stavers, 60. 

Steele, 82. 

Stickney, 99. 

Stillman, 71. 

Stillson, 7. 

Stoddard, 28. 

Story, 23. 

Stow, 30. 

Strachan, 4. 

Sullivan, 19, 35, 148. 

Tenney, 83. 
Thom, 149. 
Thompson, 22. 
Ticknor, 28. 
Tilton, 148, 149. 
Trask, 22. 

Upham, 34, 35. 

Van Cortlandt, iii. 

Waldron, 32. 

"Walker, 22. 

Walton, 58. 

Warren, 28, 39. 

Washington, i, 45, 114, 115, 117, 

123, 124. 
Weare, 45. 
Webster, 19, 23, 36, 103. 



156 



Index of Names. 



Wentworth, 90. 
Wheelwright, 30. 
White, 22, 30. 
Wibird, 21. 
Williams, 3. 



Woodbury, 19, 22, 91, 103, 14S. 
Woods, 69. 
Wyman, 58. 

Young, I, ID, II, 12, 20. 



